Simon Sobo, M.D. has a private psychiatric practice in Northwestern Connecticut. He was Chief of Psychiatry at New Milford Hospital from 1981-99, and president of the hospital medical staff from 1990-92. After finishing his training at Albert Einstein School of Medicine he taught there for 3 years before realizing that he was not cut out for academia. He needed freedom to express whatever he had to say without worrying about career consequences. Einstein was a leading Freudian institution at the time, so, it was almost inevitable that Dr. Sobo became a fierce critic of Freud. Still later, when Freud went out of fashion, he became a proponent of many, though certainly not all, of his ideas.
In retrospect, it has become clear that iconoclasm disproportionately energizes his thinking. The issues discussed in his papers, are not arbitrary. Relevance remains the top priority. Nevertheless, there is pattern. Confidently made statements that are claimed as true when they obviously aren’t (usually the result of groupthink) have always gotten him going. He feels compelled to take up the challenge whenever he comes across it, which is frequently, whether it is psychoanalytic, psychopharmacological, or anything in between (including previous articles that he has written). His independence (described by his wife as stubborness) is not without consequences. For example, The Fear of Death was scheduled to be published by IUP, which would have meant promotion and reviews in the journals. Unwilling to make the changes IUP’s editor demanded, it eventually had to be self published, and so, never reached the intended audience
Dr. Sobo has 4 children and 2 grandchildren. For the last year he has been working on a novel and screenplay version of After Lisa, based on a true story.
With his wife, Linda, he has also written two children’s musicals, Anna Oceanna (which was performed at New Milford TheatreWorks) and Iron John. He is also a passionate gardener, and off and on does photography, some of which can be accessed here.