Sharon Packer

Dr. Packer is a psychiatrist in private practice and Asst Clinical Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Articles on "Why Psychiatrists are Physicians First" in Psychiatric Times explain her philosophy of psychiatric medicine. Articles on "What Wordsworth Knew: Daffodils as Antidepressants" taps into the intersections between medicine, psychiatry & the arts (as does her award-winning research on the art of Bosch, Breughel and Grunewald, Ergot Epidemics, and mystical movements). (BTW, Bosch and comic book art are kindred cousins, and hence the attraction to comics imagery, as well as dream-inspired Symbolist and Surrealist art.)

Books include DREAMS IN MYTH, MEDICINE & MOVIES (2012) (Choice's best academic title of 2003; rated "essential"), MOVIES & THE MODERN PSYCHE (2007), SUPERHEROES AND SUPEREGOS (2010), CINEMA'S SINISTER PSYCHIATRISTS (2012). NEUROSCIENCE IN SCIENCE FICTION FILM (McFarland) and a co-edited, two-volume THE HISTORY OF EVIL IN AMERIAN POPULAR CULTURE (ABC-Clio) are in press.