David Marcus

More Personal Biography
As all biographies, this one begins with my childhood.
I was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1950. My parents, Charlotte and Mannie, were of Jewish heritage although my mother was brought up orthodox and my father, who’s family was extremely poor, had little religious training or beliefs.
My childhood was not a happy one. Being short and heavy left me with little status amongst my peers who were faster and more athletic than myself. My father was mostly at work and, when not there, he was golfing, bowling, or playing cards. My mother in retrospect was both depressed and likely had Asperger’s Syndrome and she could not relate to her peers or her children. It was a lonely childhood and I took out my anger and depression on my kid brother. My parents never considered getting me any psychological help although there was a child psychologist with a home office four houses away.
My one way to soothe myself was through singing. I had a good singing voice. My first “gig” as a singer was singing The Four Questions at the family Passover seder at my grandparent’s home. I can still recall my grandfather who ran the seder having tears in his eyes as his first grandson was “belting out” the four questions in Hebrew.
In college, I was a psychology major. My interest in music was still growing. I borrowed a friend’s guitar and began to teach myself chords and fingerstyle guitar parts. This was 1968 and I was now a folk singer. I played at local coffeehouses. I have to admit, it was a great way to meet girls. I worked that summer and bought my first good guitar.
After college, I got a job doing research in Neuroendocrinology. My project was a success and I presented my paper at the Endocrinology convention in NYC in 1974. I was the youngest presenter ever and I was scared to death!
After my grant expired, I decided I wanted to go into the more clinical aspects of psychology. I volunteered on an adolescent ward in a local state hospital. From there, I got a job with a local foundation as a recreation counselor. After three years, I decided that I wanted to go into Clinical Psychology with a specialization on children and families.
I went to graduate school at the University of Louisville in their doctoral program in Clinical Psychology. By then I had been married, divorced and remarried shortly after I graduated. I then did a postdoctoral study in Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. My wife Susan was doing her Internal Medicine residency at the same time. We settled down in Cincinnati and two years later, my son Seth was born.
I opened up a private practice shortly after my post-doc and have been in practice now for almost 41 years. Based on my own personal history, I have specialized in treatment of families under stress and parent-child communication. At this point in my career, I am semi-retired and have focused on writing a book on parenting entitle, Parent Rx: Prescriptive Wisdom, Tips and Strategies for Communication with Your Child which I expect to be in print this coming year. I wrote the book at the request from many of my clients who were the parents of young and adolescent children who had learned the concept and techniques I elaborate in the book and say the significance of the results in communicating with their children and each other.
I would ask you to look at my Podmatch profile and pitch letter to see which topics may be of interest to your listening audience. You may also want to check out my website parentrx.org to review my previous podcasts, and the reviews I received from other podcast hosts. In fact, just for fun, at the bottom of the website is a link to a CD of Celtic music I recorded back in the late 90’s. Yes…music is still a big part of my life. Over the years, I have learned to play the mandolin, tenor (4-string) banjo, and octave mandolin as well as continuing my love of the guitar. In addition, I have done many musicals in community theater playing wonderful roles such as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” and Max Bialystock in “The Producers”.
I hope you have a chance to listen to the CD as it was a “labor of love” for me.
As you can tell, I have a “checkered past”. Throughout my personal and professional life, I have always valued creativity. Being creative has been the biggest joy and most personal connection I have had with the important people in my life.
Thanks for considering me as a guest speaker on your podcast.