Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry - About the Authors

Virginia Alcott Sadock, M.D

Virginia Alcott Sadock, M.D. is a member of the faculty of the New York University School of Medicine, where she is clinical professor of psychiatry and attending psychiatrist at Tisch Hospital and Bellevue Hospital. She is director of the Program in Human Sexuality and Sex Therapy at the NYU Medical Center, one of the largest treatment and training programs of its kind in the United States.

She is the author of over 50 articles and chapters on sexual behavior, including the effects of drugs on sexual function, and was the developmental editor of The Sexual Experience, published by Williams & Wilkins-one of the first major textbooks on human sexuality. She serves as referee and book reviewer for several medical journals including the American Journal of psychiatry and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

She has had a long-standing interest in the role of women in medicine and psychiatry and was a founder of the Committee on Women in Psychiatry of the New York County District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association. She is active in academic matters, has served as an assistant and associate examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for over 15 years, and was also a member of the test committee in psychiatry for both the American Board of Psychiatry and the Psychiatric Knowledge and Self-Assessment Program (PKSAP) of the American Psychiatric Association. She served as chairperson of the Committee on Public Relations, New York County District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association, and also participated in the National Medical Television Network series Women in Medicine and the PBS television documentary Women and Depression. She has been vice-president of the Society of Sex Therapy and Research, a regional council member of the American Association of Sex Education Counselors and Therapists, and is president of the Alumni Association of Sex Therapists.

She lectures extensively both in the United States and abroad on sexual dysfunction, relational problems, and depression and anxiety disorders. She is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and a diplomats of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Dr. Sadock was graduated from Bennington College, received her M.D. from New York Medical College, and trained in psychiatry at Metropolitan Hospital. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, Dr. Benjamin Sadock, where she maintains an active psychiatric practice that includes individual psychotherapy, couples and marital therapy, sex therapy, psychiatric consultation, and pharmacotherapy. They have two children, James and Victoria, both physicians in emergency medicine. In her leisure time, Dr. Sadock enjoys theater, film, reading fiction, and travel.