Author of "The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the myth of the mad genius," Dr. J combines her love of jazz and her fascination with psychology, focusing on where they overlap: in celebrating the individual spirit.
Some things I've done and been: earned a PhD in psychology from NYU, toiled as therapist, school shrink, crisis counselor, university professor, college administrator. Authored a biography of Humphrey Bogart (Metro Books) and was invited to write the psychology chapter for Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook (Garland Press). It's called “Psychology, Evil, and Sweeney Todd.” I contributed numerous book reviews and extended essays on psychology, education, and general cultural idiocy to The Baltimore Sun while it still had a great opinion section. I am/have been a writer, consultant, and/or editorial board member for a number of psychology journals, as well as the humor columnist for a national magazine about artists that lasted three whole years before going belly-up. My work has appeared in The American Psychologist, The National Psychologist, The Counseling Psychologist, The British Journal of Psychiatry, the Journal of Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, The Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, and the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity (truly! I wrote Free the DSM IV, which was re-published in the compendium called “More Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (Brunner/Mazel). My music writing has been in the All Music Guide, The Jazz Institute of Chicago, The Sondheim Review, The Jazzletter, the Encyclopedia of American Studies, and of course the best of all: Allaboutjazz.com, where I'm a senior reviewer and creator of two columns: Shrinktunes and Nite & Disk. I do liner notes on a very selective basis, consistent with my policy of never doing bad or even blah reviews -- if I don't genuinely love a CD, I simply won't cover it. Let other writers pour the negative ink on somebody's dream. Artists whose CDs I've described include Don Friedman, Shelly Berg, and Frank Vignola. I've been doing some official producing after years of helping out backstage --very, very proud of helping to birth TRUST , the Sean Smith Quartet's wonderful release with Sean on bass, John Hart (guitar), John Ellis (sax), and Russ Meissner (drums). I'm also a musician. Trained as a classical pianist, not a bad folk guitarist in my hippie days, I spent many years doing avocational jazz singing and drumming -- was even employed for a wedding (!)-- before forming the JS Fourtet with Norm Lotz (bass), Nick Consol (piano), and Gerry Fitzgerald, (drums). We jam regularly just for fun, and it's a blast. Lately I've been gaining increasing recognition for my work on the (alleged) link between creativity and bipolar disorder. I was invited to contribute to a new psych textbook on the subject; out of 17 experts from around the world, I am the only one who does not believe that people need to be really crazy to be really creative. My new book explains this at length. A rare hybrid of serious scholarship and humor, The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the myth of the mad genius is HOT OFF THE PRESS NOW, and can be ordered online at the usual suspects. If you'd like to get a customized, personally-inscribed copy sent to the “mad genius” on your list, please visit www.theinsanityhoax.com for full details and special purchase. I also love traveling, gardening, long walks on winter beaches -- oops, wrong site!
