Daniel Kriegman, Ph.D.

As a clinician writing within the framework of evolutionary biology—our only scientific theory of creation—I seek to integrate our understanding of the biological functions (the distal, ultimate events that shaped us) with our lived, human experience (the proximal motivations that today guide our behavior and shape the meaning of our lives). My clinical background includes being the Chief Psychologist at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Offenders, as well as the Clinical Director for the maximum-security, intensive-treatment unit for adolescents in Boston. At the Treatment Center, I evaluated and treated rapists, child molesters, and murderers. On many hundreds of occasions in various courts (e.g., MA, NY, NH, IA, and the Federal Circuit), I have been deemed an "expert witness" regarding the danger posed by men and women facing involuntary commitment due to mental illness. I supervised the evaluations and/or testified in the trials of thousands of people facing "one day to life" commitments as a "sexually dangerous person." My teaching and consulting includes being a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and teaching psychology at SUNY at Buffalo, Massasoit College, Lesley College, and Boston University. I was a founder of the Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Institute of New England, and I am the creative consultant behind the acclaimed Edgeline Films (Showtime) docu-series, Couples Therapy. In addition to my published books and articles, I have served as a peer reviewer for major journals such as the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. I have been an invited, plenary speaker at international conferences on psychoanalytic treatment. At Mad in America, I blog about the politics of diagnosis and treatment. Taking an evolutionary biological view, as a practicing clinical psychologist I explore the negotiation of conflicting realities that lies at the heart of successful treatment, and how a healing discipline can help prevent the dictating of meaning and truth from one party to another.