MICHAEL FENICHEL, PhD

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by people and the way we think, communicate, and act.

I had a darkroom as a child. I loved photography. It promoted technical and creative growth and yielded tangible images to share and a great excuse (later in life) for travel. At this point in my long journey, I have adopted the mantra of “context and perspective”, applied to both personal and professional activity.

I seem to have psychoanalytic DNA, and that was my first immersion, followed by a broadening of interest to cognition/CBT and beyond individual thinking to the social context (“frame”). I’ve done a great deal of testing and therapy as my day job, following a stint in the music business. At the forefront of “mental health online” before there was a Facebook, I co-founded an International organization to promote online activities, ethically and effectively. (ISMHO)

I’ve lectured, taught, and written extensively on the topic of online experience, put up an extensive website with many 9/11 resources, shared articles about APA events which powerfully impacted me, and have many pages (my site and Flickr) of photography.

My website, 25+ years thus far, of “Psychology, Photography & Internet Fun” :
http://www.fenichel.com

First Day Out
(Digital image, 15x10x300dpi) 

"A first walk, after a winter and spring beginning in COVID lockdown. The tents were gone from Central Park, some locals ventured out to a near-empty and eerie but beautiful and somber place. A place we shared but drifted past in our own re-orientation to time & place.

I have a few portraits which still give me shivers, and as a psychologist I wonder if or what any of these images will evoke in anyone else.... But just as I will never forget my own experiences on 9/11, I'll not forget the sound of this masked man's accordion, or the look of the baby, truly on a first day out into the world. For me and neighbors, the lovely familiar. But different. Once taken for granted, filtered now in (cue music) the mirrors of the mind.

Pots banging at 7PM each night, for the healthcare workers. That was the highlight of our days, aside from the frantic calls and efforts to somehow help. Felt like shades of Sept. 11. How to help in a puddle of mush?

Of course I had with me my extension of vision and memory, my friend the camera. (Fujifilm X series for the interested) It felt surreal. I have no idea how it looked/looks second hand but "being there" at and on Bow Bridge, in near-deserted Central Park, being slowly re-populated, replete with a somber accordion backdrop... It was.

psychservices@gmail.com
twitter.com/drmikenyc
www.fenichel.com