Mark Goulston

Mark Goulston (born February 21, 1948) is a prominent psychiatrist and consultant to major organizations. His book, Just Listen, ranked #1 in six Amazon/Kindle categories, has been translated into 14 languages, reached #1 in Munich and Shanghai, and became the basis of a 2010 PBS special. The Consumers Research Council three times named him one of America's Top Psychiatrists, including in 2011. For over 20 years, he has been Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute. Goulston has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, The Phil Donahue Show, CNN, and hosted a PBS pledge drive special. His column Solve Anything with Dr. Mark is nationally syndicated by Tribune Media Services. He blogs for the Huffington Post, Psychology Today, Fast Company, and Business Insider, contributes to the Harvard Business Review and writes a syndicated column for "Biz Journals",. He frequently gives keynote speeches at women's conferences. Dr. Goulston lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

Early life

Mark Steven Goulston was born on February 21, 1948 in Boston, MA, to Irving Goulston, who rose from bookkeeper to controller and CFO at United Liquors, and Ruth Goulston, who was a homemaker and shop owner. He skipped a grade and graduated early from Newton South High School. He attended the University of Vermont from 1965–66 and then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his B.A. in 1969 with a major in Zoology.

From there, he went on to a year of graduate school in Zoology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst from 1969-1970 and then on to medical school at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), where he took two non-consecutive medical leaves of absence. He attributes this to untreated depression.

During his second leave of absence, he took a three-month medical student elective at the Menninger Psychiatric Clinic in Topeka, KS where he worked with schizophrenics and felt that psychiatry was his calling—that listening and empathy in addition to drugs and ECT were key to addressing even severe mental illness. With renewed focus and his new goal of being a full-dimensioned psychiatrist, he returned to BUSM and completed his MD degree in 1976.

Goulston completed Internship at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, CA and his psychiatric residency at UCLA's famed Neuropsychiatric Institute under supervision and then mentorship of suicidologist Edwin Shneidman and then became Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, where he served for over 20 years.

Career

Goulston started a private practice. It specialized in suicide, death, and dying, including making house calls, and working with families and couples. After doing psychiatric house calls to dying patients and their family members, he was sought out to work with the surviving family and their businesses.

That expanded to his being a consultant, speaker, trainer and coach to such organizations as IBM, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Xerox, Deutsche Bank, Hyatt, Accenture, Astra Zeneca, British Airways, Sodexo, ESPN, Kodak, Federal Express, YPO, YPOWPO India, Association for Corporate Growth, FBI, Los Angeles District Attorney, White & Case, Seyfarth Shaw, UCLA Anderson School of Management, USC, and Pepperdine University.

He has been interviewed, appeared in and/or and written for hundreds of major media, including: the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Los Angeles Times, CNN, MSNBC, and HLN. He also co-hosts the Zo Williams Morning Radio Show,. In 2016, he became a co-host on It's Your Health with his day entitled, "Dr. G and Lisa," carried on NPR and commercial radio stations,.

In addition to the aforementioned Just Listen, Goulston's seven books include Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior (Perigee), Get Out of Your Own Way at Work…and Help Others Do the Same (Perigee), The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship (Perigee), and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder For Dummies. His sixth book, Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In, co-authored with Dr. John Ullmen was published in 2013 and was selected as the lead book for the American Management Association and has also been selected as one of the 30 Best Business Books for 2013 by Soundview Executive Summaries. In 2015, Dr. Goulston's seventh book, Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life was published by Amacom Books, which went on to be an Oprah featured book, and to be an Audie Awards 2016 Finalist,.

Goulston sits on the Board of Advisors at HealthCorps (Dr. Mehmet Oz's foundation) and American Women Veterans, and he is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is also the Co-Founder, Co-Curator and Co-Guardian of Heartfelt Leadership, an effort to bring more humanity and ultimately more profit to the workplace.

Dr. Goulston is also Co-Developer of The Exam Performance Program (R), an eLearning course which teaches students how to be calm, confident and focused so they can perform better and score better on academic exams and standardized tests. The course has been developed to (I) improve student cognitive performance and test scores on academic exams and standardized tests, (II) improve student mindset, self-confidence, self-efficacy, motivation, engagement, retention and academic trajectory, (III) eliminate/prevent test-anxiety and "stereotype-threat", and (IV) motivate STEM achievement, especially in low-income/minority/female/foster-care student groups. The Exam Performance company website and information about the Development Team is at http://www.ExamPerformance.com and http://examperformance.enlightus.com/start.aspx?menuid=2994

In 2015, Dr. Goulston became Chief Mentor and a Principal at China Foundations and in 2016 he became a Principal and Board Advisor to the transdisciplinary consulting firm, Alchemy.