Keith Ablow

Keith Russell Ablow (born November 23, 1961) is an American psychiatrist, expert witness, New York Times best-selling author of fiction and nonfiction, and television personality. He is also a contributor on psychiatry for Fox News Channel.

Early life and training

Ablow was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the son of Jeanette Norma and Allan Murray Ablow. He graduated from Brown University in 1983, magna cum laude (high honors), with a Bachelor of Science degree in neurosciences. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1987, and completed his psychiatry residency at the Tufts-New England Medical Center.^{[citation needed]} He was Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology in psychiatry in 1993 and forensic psychiatry in 1999.^[3]

While a medical student, he worked as a reporter for Newsweek and a freelancer for the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun and USA Today. After his residency, Ablow served as medical director of the Tri-City Mental Health Centers and then became medical director of Heritage Health Systems and Associate Medical Director of Boston Regional Medical Center.^[4]

Personal life

Ablow's wife, Deborah Jean Small, is an attorney.^[5] Ablow was raised Jewish.^[5]

Television and writing career

Ablow has written hundreds of columns/articles for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, Newsweek, The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Herald and FoxNews.com.

He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, The Howard Stern Show, Good Morning America, the CBS "Early Show," "Larry King," The Tyra Banks Show, Nancy Grace (CNN) program, Catherine Crier Live, The Dr. Oz Show, "Glenn Beck," "Fox & Friends," "Geraldo," "Imus," "Montel," "Sally Jesse," "Maury Povich," "Inside Edition," "Showbiz Tonight," "Doctor's Radio," and The O'Reilly Factor. He has been interviewed by Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and many other print, television and radio journalists.

From June 2006 through September 2007, Ablow was host and executive producer of his own national daily talk show, The Dr. Keith Ablow Show, syndicated by Warner Bros. On October 17, 2006 he obtained an exclusive interview with John Mark Karr, and video taped Karr without his knowledge at times,^[6] the man who falsely confessed to being the murderer of beauty pageant child star JonBenet Ramsey. After interviewing Karr, Ablow asserted he was dealing with a "textbook case of pedophilia" and that Karr would continue to pose a threat to society once free. The show lasted less than one year, with about 1% of TV viewers tuning in.^[7]

Following his show's cancellation, Ablow has been a contributing editor for Good Housekeeping Magazine and Men's Fitness, and a columnist for the New York Post.^[4] He also contributes commentary and analysis for the Fox News Channel.

Ablow is the author of six psychological fiction thrillers featuring Frank Clevenger, a forensic psychiatrist dedicated to a search for truth, no matter where it leads. More than one of the titles was a USA Today bestseller.^{[citation needed]}

Ablow's true crime book, Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson, was a New York Times bestseller.

In 2007, Ablow published a prescriptive self-help book, Living the Truth: Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty in conjunction with a self-help web community.

Ablow's 2011 book, The 7,^[8] co-authored by Glenn Beck, was released in January 2011 and was a New York Times bestseller. In November, St. Martin's Press published a second Ablow book, Inside the Mind of Casey Anthony: A Psychological Portrait.

Ablow has also written widely circulated columns on FoxNews.com addressing treatment strategies for major depression, anxiety disorders and substance abuse disorders. He also has written about possible diagnoses for public figures, though he has never actually treated them himself. For example, he publicly speculated that Vice President Joe Biden had dementia after his 2012 VP Debate performance, which critics and readers notably argued.^[9][10]

Ablow has written 15 books, some published by the American Psychiatric Association, been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and written for Psychiatric Times magazine.

Political ambitions

In January 2013, Ablow expressed his interests in possibly running for the vacant Senate seat left by John Kerry,^[11] With no political background, Ablow, from the beginning, would have been a long shot if he did choose to run. On February 5, 2013, Ablow announced that he would seek the Republican nomination, but only if he did not have to face a primary battle.^[12] On February 6, 2013, Ablow said he would not run since other Republican contenders entered the race, and declared his support for Republican State Rep. Dan Winslow.^[13]

Controversial comments in the media

Ablow has made a number of controversial statements, including psychological assessments of various celebrities he has never examined, that have drawn criticism from other practitioners in his field as well from as various organizations and groups which were offended by his comments. Ablow has stated in an article on the Fox News website^[14] that years ago he "resigned in protest" from the American Psychiatric Association, which is the governing body that sets the standard of practice in the field of psychiatry and publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In the article, he did not state what he had been protesting about, but expressed his disagreement with various entries in the DSM.

Articles by Ablow later clarified that he worried that the American Psychiatric Association had stood silent while the psycho-therapeutic skills once learned by psychiatrists were left out of current training regimens. He also agreed with leaders in the field like Paul McHugh, MD, and Phillip Slavney, MD, that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (published by the APA) was oversimplifying human experience and pathologizing it.

In April 2011, Ablow wrote a health column for FoxNews.com^[15] which criticized designer Jenna Lyons for publishing an advertisement in the J. Crew catalogue in which she was depicted painting her young son's toenails hot pink. Ablow wrote that gender distinctions are "part of the magnificent synergy that creates and sustains the human race". The column sparked a controversy around his claims that painting a child's toenails pink could have an effect on their gender identity and led to accusations of overreaction, as was reported upon by numerous news media sources.^{[16][17][18][19]} Ablow refused to back down, even re-posting the column on his Facebook page.

During the 2012 Republican primary, Ablow wrote a column arguing that Newt Gingrich's three marriages actually made him more qualified to be president. He wrote: "When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one."^[20] The column was criticized, with Rod Dreher of The American Conservative commenting thusly: "Oh for frack’s sake. At some point, you have to wonder when shamelessness crosses the line from character defect to psychopathology. If only Dr. Leo Spaceman were a Republican, he could have a lucrative career on Fox."^[21]

Ablow later clarified that his position was that one's private sexual life should remain private and that dissecting the sex lives of public figures was counterproductive and salacious.

While providing Fox News television "medical analysis" of the October 11th, 2012 Vice Presidential debate, Ablow strongly and repeatedly suggested that some of Vice President Joe Biden's behaviors, such as interruptions of the opposing candidate and what he believed to be excessive laughter, might mean that he should be evaluated for dementia, alcoholism, or other conditions.^[22] "I'm not diagnosing him," he clarified. "I haven't evaluated him. But psychological testing - It's anyone's guess what it would show." Psychologist John Grohol questioned Ablow's ethical behavior in an article on Psych Central, a website he created for the accurate dissemination of authoritative mental health information to the public. Citing Section 7, Article 3 of the APA's "Principles of Medical Ethics...,"^[23] he accused Ablow of a double standard.^[24] "He prefaces his comments with a standard disclaimer media doctors often try to use to make it sound more ethical. Dr. Keith Ablow acknowledges he’s never seen Joe Biden in a professional capacity. Yet, Dr. Ablow is discussing differential diagnoses about Biden as though he had...Would anyone feel comfortable being judged by a medical professional like Dr. Ablow based upon a single incident like this?" At the time of Ablow's comments, however, he was no longer affiliated with the APA and not bound to its ethical standards.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

Non-fiction

• Medical School: Getting In, Staying In, Staying Human (1987)
• How to Cope with Depression (1989)
• To Wrestle With Demons: A Psychiatrist Struggles to Understand His Patients and Himself (1992)
• Anatomy of a Psychiatric Illness: Healing the Mind and Brain (1993)
• The Strange Case of Dr. Kappler: The Doctor Who Became a Killer (1994)
• Without Mercy: The Shocking True Story of a Doctor Who Murdered (1996)
• Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson (2005)
• Living the Truth: Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty (2007)
• The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life (2011) (co-authored with Glenn Beck)
• Inside the Mind of Casey Anthony: A Psychological Portrait (2011)

Fiction/mystery

The series features Frank Clevenger, a forensic psychiatrist from Massachusetts.

• Denial (1998)
• Projection (1999)
• Compulsion (2002)
• Psychopath (2003)
• Murder Suicide (2004)
• The Architect (2005)

References

External links

• Official website
  • Biography
• FOX Health blog, "Mind of the News"
• Contributor for SingleMindedWomen.com
• Keith Ablow interview, about one of his books (Murder/Suicide)
• Interview with Ablow on 'How to Make Your Marriage Last'
• TV Series Finale - TV series cancellation details