A Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University and Attending physician at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Dr. First is one of the world's leading experts on psychiatric diagnosis and assessment.

Dr. Michael First is editor of the last two editions of psychiatric diagnostic guide, the DSM-IV and the DSM-IV-TR. The DSM is the standard diagnostic manual for psychiatry and the mental health professions. He is currently working on the preparation of the next edition, DSM-V. He is Director of the DSM-V Prelude Project and co-Principal Investigator on the "Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis" conference series, which is setting research priorities for the DSM-V.

He is also the lead author of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, a diagnostic instrument used widely by psychiatric researchers, by the pharmaceutical industry, and by clinicians and educators in a wide variety of settings. He is also author of numerous texts including the DSM-IV-TR Casebook, the DSM-IV-TR Guidebook, the DSM-IV-TR Handbook of Differential Diagnosis, and DSM-IV-TR Mental Disorders: Diagnosis, Etiology, and Treatment. He also edited the American Psychiatric Association's Handbook of Psychiatric Measures --all staples of any mental health professional's library.

A summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, who majored in computer science, Dr. First has developed an array of highly subscribed to computer-administered software programs for diagnostic interviewing.

Dr. First's academic accomplishments are diverse. He supervises trainees at Columbia in psychopharmacology and in cognitive therapy for personality disorders. As an extension of his internationally recognized expertise on diagnosis and assessment issues, Dr. First has consulted to the FBI on the classification of violent crime.

Dr. First is also Medical Editor of the Quick Reference Guides to the American Psychiatric Association's Practice Guidelines, which set evidence-based standards for the treatment of different psychiatric disorders.

A clinician with a rich expertise in psychiatry, Dr. First has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles on assessment, mood disorders, personality disorders, and substance dependence. Dr. First also maintains a psychotherapy and psychopharmacology practice in Manhattan.

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