Speaker - Stephen Sonnenberg

While a student at Princeton in the late 1950s and early 1960s Stephen Sonnenberg was influenced by the ideas of the literary critic and poet R. P. Blackmur, and read C. P. Snow's The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959). He will explain Snow's influence on his thinking throughout his life, as reflected in his memoir now in its third draft, which looks closely at doctor-patient exchanges. A physician and humanities scholar, Sonnenberg will further discuss how his thinking on health care has evolved and how he structures his conversation with patients. The lecture will include an explanation of how medical psychoanalysts traditionally made clinical decisions.

Stephen Sonnenberg, M.D., was educated at Princeton University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree in 1965. He is now Professor of Psychiatry, Population Health, and Medical Education at the Dell Medical School, as well as Professor of Instruction at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and a Fellow of the Trice Professorship in the Plan II Honors Program. Like C. P. Snow, he tries to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities.