Where there’s an Illness, there’s a Way

“When I started college, I was taking a mixture of psychology and hard sciences like biology and chemistry,” explains the Queens native, who’s been accepted to a Psy.D program at Pace University. “But I gravitated toward psychology as time progressed. I felt that I was able to engage my own interests and creativity. Even in the non-research-oriented classes, there was a lot more discussion involved about our own ideas and whatever area it was we were discussing.”

But Gottlieb’s foundation was solidly research oriented, including a memorable analysis of the correlation between maladapted perfectionism and negative God image. Or, as he puts it, “The idea is that somebody who has a certain picture of God as being a punitive and unkind person will push himself beyond his limits in his approach to life. He’s what we’d call a perfectionist. The idea is that those two things are linked.”

Gottlieb became enthusiastic about the research after recognizing that he could in fact have a serious affect on the results—that he was more than just an observer of established psychology. “What I find interesting,” he says, “is that I, as an undergraduate, was actually able to contribute an idea that would have clinical implications on a therapist-client situation.”

The next step was taking that classroom experience and corresponding introspection out into the field. LCM Associate Professor Dr. Alan Perry selected Gottlieb, among others, to participate in an internship through Kings County Hospital Center, where Dr. Perry once headed up the Psychology department. Specifically, Gottlieb would observe and assist while Dr. Perry evaluated defendants to determine whether they were fit to stand trial. From the beginning, it proved an enthralling but also challenging task.

“It’s fascinating, because some of the people who are brought in to be evaluated have untreated mental illness,” Gottlieb says. “So let’s say we had a lot of schizophrenics. A hallmark of untreated schizophrenia is loose association—they jump from idea to idea with no connection. That’s exactly what I’d seen in my textbook, but seeing it first-hand gives a very different life to understanding the disease.”

The internship also taught Gottlieb valuable professional lessons about emotionally detaching from patients and clients, despite initial pangs of empathy. “The first couple of days, I felt terrible for a lot of the people,” he concedes. But I spoke to Dr. Perry and I realized you have to distance yourself. It’s a tough balance because you don’t want to be cold-hearted, but on the other hand, a lot of these situations are really tragic.”

One example was an arrestee who’d violated a restraining order against his wife. And “as Dr. Perry began talking to him, it became clear he was physically abused as a child,” Gottlieb recalls. “Dr. Perry was trying to display some empathy and said, ‘It’s a pretty sad situation you went through.’ And the guy was so hard, and he said, ‘No that’s life. That’s the way life goes.’ As if it were completely normal to have been abused that way and be on the path he was, where he was physically abusive to his own wife. It was just really sad to see that.”

Ultimately, Gottlieb’s dedication to research, personal reflection and interaction with underserved populations have all motivated him to make a difference in peoples’ lives through psychology. “Before doing the internship, I thought I wouldn’t be interested in working with several mental illnesses,” he says. “But I was able to see that, with the proper medication and therapy, people can really live a functional life.”