Charles Patterson

I was born in Santa Monica, California, earned a BS degree in biochemistry at California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo in 1962, and an MD at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1966. I completed a psychiatry residency at Rollman Psychiatric Institute in Cincinnati in 1970. My working career consisted of private practice in five locations, six fulltime employed positions, and included eighteen hospital staff memberships, sixteen professional titles, and membership in twelve professional organizations; and unintentionally grew into a nomadic life style. My career goal was to learn as much as possible about normal human nature, in addition to make a living. Now my goal has extended to understanding as much as possible, especially life and death. I wrote a newsletter about psychiatry for the general reader to support my practice in Arizona, and consolidated it into my first book in 1984. From that my interest in writing grew along with interest in horse care that was stimulated by my wife’s interest in endurance riding. We enjoyed the sport together during our thirty years of marriage, until we retired in 2008 to an equestrian community near Tehachapi, California, with three horses, two dogs and four cats, and a plan to rejoin the sport, but without realizing they all had become too old. The subsequent loss of my wife to ovarian cancer in 2010, and much of the animal herd, reawakened my interest in the process of death and the potential for “life after death,” that continues to motivate my writing and study.

Charles Patterson

Articles:

The Alzheimer’s Experience, Part I: ‘Which Island is This?’

The Alzheimer’s Experience, Part II: ‘He Was Such a Strong, Proud Man’

Shades of Grief: How Personal Traits Influence Our Grief

Shades of Grief: Culture Shapes Our Mourning

Shades of Grief: How Do We Know What’s Normal?

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