Overview

BREAKING BLAME by David Schroeder MD, is the result of forty years of psychiatric practice in which the author was willing to let his patients teach him. After being fully trained in psychiatry in a University of California residency, becoming certified in his specialty by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and being honored with a Distinguished Life Fellowship by the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Schroeder came to see that what he learned in top-notch academic medicine did not work to help patients as well as what he learned from them during those decades in medical practice. Eschewing the methods of motivational speakers, psychoanalysts, self-esteem promoters, feel-good therapists, and personal advisors, he gets down to the specific thought patterns that cause blame, shame, depression, guilt, and anxiety and teaches thinking as it would be if we had not been taught in our nascency that we must be better than we are to prevent grief, sadness, and fear. The book is a combination of memoir about how the author learned what he learned and how-to manual imparting joy and well-being. It is filled with anecdotes, stories, and parables. Though often sarcastic and even salacious, it is always completely serious. It is amusing, although its aim is to better the lives of readers, not entertain them.

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9780989208529

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David Schroeder was raised in Southern California during World War II and the Truman and Eisenhower years. He never left Orange County, but did leave the sexism and racism in that land of milk and honey for white, middle class, protestant, straight, and cisgender males of that place and time. History was his main interest in school; His BA is in that field. This motivated a lifetime of international travel as he absorbed global cultures. He became a medical doctor because he thought he wasn't smart enough to make a living in history. Schroeder's father was a physician, and he grew up with the medical science and ethics of an era which seemed far more imperative than in current times when the ethics and standards of business have taken over medicine. He chose psychiatry as being the medical field in which he was most likely to be able to control his hours and have a quality life with his family. When patients started teaching him what works in psychotherapy, he became intrigued by the power of universal, every-day thinking to magnify symptoms and suffering. A passion to alleviate anguish led him to practice psychotherapy and psychopharmacology in one office for his entire career. He always wanted to write about the techniques that he found so helpful but waited until a decade after retirement to see their long-term outcome before doing so. These are his credentials and affiliations: Distinguished Life Fellow, American Psychiatric Association Career-long member, American Medical Association Board Certified in Psychiatry, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, 1974 Private practice of general psychiatry, 1973 to 2007 Medical/surgical and psychiatric hospital staff memberships in Orange County, California Past Clinical Assistant Professor, UCI School of Medicine Lt. Commander USNR-Camp Pendleton (USMC) Base Psychiatrist 1971 to 1973 Resident in Psychiatry, UCI, 1968 to 1971 Licensed to practice medicine in California since 1968 Rotating O Internship, Orange County Medical Center, 1967 to 1968 MD degree, Loma Linda University, 1967

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