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Psychiatry is enriched by understanding family relationships.

Including families in the assessment and treatment of mental health problems is essential to effective practice.

 
  

Welcome

The Association of Family Psychiatrists supports psychiatrists involved in family therapy, family psychoeducation and family inclusive care, and provides resources to the therapy and consumer community.

  • The AFP
    • Advocates for the central role of families in all aspects of psychiatric illness and recovery.
    • Works to strengthen family oriented care and family training within psychiatric residencies and medical schools.
    • Disseminates research findings regarding family-oriented care.
    • Provides consumers and professionals with resources to support patients and families dealing with psychiatric illness.
    • Connects family psychiatrists with each other to support our work.
    • Provides a list of family psychiatrists to the general community.
  • Within the APA
    • We are an allied organization.
    • Are members of the APA Assembly, joining representatives of district branches and minority and under-represented groups in the grass-roots form of APA government.
    • Review APA document drafts such as the Practice Guidelines.
    • Support AFP members on APA committees and governance groups.

 

                              AFP ANNUAL LUNCH MEETING

    HERBSAINT, 701 St. Charles Ave. New Orleans at 12NOON on May 24th 2010

 

                            BIOS OF OUR NEW MEMBERS

 
Geraldine (Geri) Fox, MD, FAACAis Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Special Assistant to the Senior Associate Dean of Educational Affairs, Director of Graduate Medical Education Programming, Director of Psychiatry Undergraduate Medical Education, Institute for Juvenile Research, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Fox's activities in psychiatry include teaching, administration, and clinical practice. Her practice philosophy is to be a family’s psychiatrist throughout the life cycle, including family systems in transition. She works with individuals, couples, and families, from infancy through old age. She has a particular interest in early childhood mental health, and is an advocate for addressing the myriad challenges facing today's families and communities. Dr. Fox's activities in graduate medical education include directing the internal review process for over 55 graduate medical education programs at UIC, curriculum development, faculty development, and evaluation methodology. Dr. Fox's activities in undergraduate medical education include directing education in psychiatry for M-1 through M-4, as well as teaching human development. Dr. Fox is an award-winning teacher at both the university and national levels. She is the author and producer of Normal Development in the First Ten Years of Life: An Educational Videotape and Teacher's Aid. This innovative trigger videotape provides 201 short vignettes of one child growing up from birth through 10 years, for use as a stimulus for classroom discussions. This videotape is available in VHS, CD-ROM and DVD. The tape is currently in use at over two-thirds of the child and adolescent psychiatry training programs in the U.S..

 

Murray Kapell has a B.S. with Distinction (1996) and his M.D.(2000) from University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.  He completed his fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in 2005. After completing his training, he engaged in a variety of clinical and community practice activities in Madison, Wisconsin for four years. He maintained a core outpatient clinical practice of 300 active psychiatric patients, providing outpatient care, and inpatient admission and care as indicated, for children, adolescents, and adults. He served as the medical director for a child and adolescent partial-day treatment center, providing psychiatric evaluations for all clients and supervising the clinical staff. He was also the clinical supervisor for an outpatient treatment center for juvenile sexual offenders. His forensic psychiatric activity has included providing clinical psychiatric evaluation and medication management services for inmates at maximum and medium security Wisconsin state prisons.
He is a member of the Family Committee, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine and the American Family Therapy Academy.
He is presently a fellow in forensic psychiatry at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital.
 
Robyn Ostrander is the Medical Director of Child and Adolescent Services at the Brattleboro Retreat. She graduated summa cum laude from Smith College with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed an internship and residency in adult psychiatry and a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School.
Dr. Ostrander is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology in both psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry. She joined the Brattleboro Retreat in July of 2005 and became Medical Director of Child and Adolescent Services in November 2006. Since 2005 she has been a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Ostrander’s clinical areas of expertise within child and adolescent psychiatry include depression and bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism spectrum and psychotic disorders.
 
Eva Ritvo is vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She is an Associate Professor in both the Departments of Psychiatry and the Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Ritvo is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a member of the American College of Psychiatry. Dr. Ritvo completed her residency training at New York Hospital Payne Whitney Clinic/ Cornell and received undergraduate and medical degrees from University of California, Los Angeles. 
Dr. Ritvo has written and lectured extensively in the US, and internationally to Dermatologists, Plastic and Cosmetic surgeons as well as Psychiatrists on the “Science and Meaning of Beauty” as well as “How to understand and handle aesthetic patients”. Dr Ritvo has written book chapters and articles on topics that include body dysmoprhic disorder, managing patient expectations and couples therapy.  She is co-author of The Beauty Prescription released by McGraw Hill in August 2008. To learn more visit www.thebeautyprescription.com 
Dr. Ritvo is the lead author of the Concise Guide to Marriage and Family Therapy and has written the chapters on Family and Couples Therapy for the leading psychiatric textbooks.  Dr. Ritvo makes frequent public speaking and TV appearances on local news channels and has appeared on the TODAY show and a special segment on EXTRA called “Beauty and the Brain”.  She had a long running TV segment called “Real Relationship”.  She is often quoted in the Miami Herald, and has also been quoted in the New York Times, New York Times magazine, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, WebMD, SELF magazine, Ladies Home Journal, O Magazine and others. Dr. Ritvo is a blogger on PsychologyToday.com.  
Dr. Ritvo initiated the Margaret Ann Aitcheson Humanitarian Award at the Miller School of Medicine. This award was named in honor of Tipper Gore’s mother and Mrs. Gore was the first recipient. The award honors those who have made an outstanding contribution in the field of mental health.

Gwyn M Cattell is a first year Child and Adolescent Fellow at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA. She graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in Biology. She received her medical degree from the Brown Program in Medicine and completed an internship
through Boston University at the Boston VAMC and an internship and residency in adult psychiatry At Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Cattell’s clinical and research interests include the intersection between adult and child psychiatry in the treatment of both mentally ill adults and children with a focus on the family relationships. She is currently serving as a Fellow in the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry as a Fellow, and is active with the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society.
 
Dr. Kristina Schwerin is an attending psychiatrist at the University of California Davis in Sacramento, CA, in the division of child & adolescent psychiatry. She attended
medical school at the University of Southern California and her undergraduate degree (cum laude) from Princeton University. She completed her residency and fellowship training at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Schwerin is actively involved in the teaching of medical students, residents, and child psychiatry fellows, and is passionate about helping train psychiatrists to take a family-based approach to their clinical work. Dr. Schwerin’s clinical interests include community psychiatry, treatment of eating disorders, and psychotherapy (individual, family, and group).