Charles Barber was educated at Harvard and Columbia and worked for ten years in New York City shelters for the homeless mentally ill. The title essay in his first book, SONGS FROM THE BLACK CHAIR, won a 2006 Pushcart Prize. His second book COMFORTABLY NUMB: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, was released in 2008 to national media attention, including appearances on The Early Show and Fresh Air. His work has appeared in the The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Nation and Scientific American Mind. He is currently a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University, Director of The Connection Institute for Innovative Practice, and a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. He lives in Connecticut with his family and is completing a novel about a depressed detective.