Board Certified Physician-Psychiatrist, Author & Speaker
Grant H Brenner MD DFAPA
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“As a teacher, I see the work as educative. As a physician and healer, I see the work as curative, and learning to live fully with what cannot be changed. As a scientist, my curiosity drives me to understand to the deepest level possible.”
“I’m action-oriented and like to see change, but I also understand that many things come only in the ripeness of time, and rushing can be counter-productive.”
“I believe that most of us have a tremendous capacity for positive change, under the right conditions.”
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About the Practice
With each of his patients, Dr Brenner looks for innate strengths and untapped areas of potential. He has found that many people have a wellspring of resilience and possibility they are often missing. He works dynamically and collaboratively with each patient to create a learning, healing, therapeutic environment in which to make great strides personally and professionally, with a focus on mind and body.
Dr Brenner’s methodologies draw upon a wide range of neuroscientific and psychological theories, as well as his personal and professional experience as a therapist, educator, entrepreneur, and psychiatrist. Fundamentally, his approach is psychoanalytic - which is the idea that listening and allowing our self-righting resilient processes to work are paramount, as is understanding developmental influences as part of refining one’s identity and sense of place in the world. Dr Brenner’s therapeutic approach is results driven but recognizes and respects the impenetrable role of time in the process of personal development. It has been his consistent finding that we all have an enormous capacity for positive change, when given the correct perspective and insight.
Dr Grant Brenner is experienced with cognitive-behavioral and other structured approaches, compassion-informed practice, meditative and body-oriented approaches, trauma-informed work, and a wide range of psychiatric theories and approaches. Fundamentally, his blended and highly personalized therapeutic approach helps to bridge and translate among multiple, seemingly contradictory perspectives, and find a common ground from which to spur forward momentum.
Dr Brenner is a board certified physician-psychiatrist and prescribes medications with a conservative evidence-based approach. He utilizes a comprehensive psychological and medical evaluation to make sure treatable issues are not missed, and will assist with referrals and communicate with other professionals in ensuring care is comprehensive.
A PERSONAL STORY
Dr. Grant Brenner is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City, where he has taught and supervised for over a decade. Dr. Brenner is Board Certified in General Psychiatry and holds certificates in Psychoanalysis and Organizational Psychodynamics from The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Psychoanalysis in New York City where he served in a variety of leadership roles. Dr. Brenner is on faculty at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, where he teaches a seminar in the Neurobiology of Trauma.
He holds certificates in the treatment of trauma and dissociation from the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. He completed undergraduate at Wesleyan University with a BA in Psychology, and earned his Medical Degress at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, in Newark, NJ. He completed two years of General Surgical Residency at Long Island Jewish, and Psychiatry Residency at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York.
Dr. Brenner grew up in a culture and family immersed in self-exploration, psychoanalysis, psychology, growth and change, science and curiosity. Early on, he felt a desire to become a therapist, and before that, a scientist. As he grappled with his own challenges and inner forces, he followed a meandering path from physics to psychology, from surgery to psychiatry, ultimately entering psychoanalytic training and private practice in 2002.
With almost 20 years in private practice, Dr Grant Brenner has developed a creative, results-driven approach to help his patients understand themselves, identify and breakdown limiting patterns, and realize their most fulfilling and complete potential.
Dr. Brenner has been a co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Psychiatry & Wellness, now part of a larger group offering in-network mental health services. He is the author and co-editor of Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience as well as co-editor of the 2nd edition of Disaster Psychiatry: Readiness, Evaluation and Treatment (anticipated Fall 2024).
In the public-facing sphere, Dr. Brenner is co-author of Irrelationship: How We Use Dysfunctional Relationships to Hide from Intimacy, Relationship Sanity: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Relationships and Making Your Crazy Work For You: From Trauma and Isolation to Self-Acceptance and Love.
He is a co-founder of the Urban Dreams Mental Health Film Festival, breaking stigma and raising awareness through the power of cinema, co-host of the Doorknob Comments Podcast, and sole author of the popular Psychology Today blog, ExperiMentations, with over 13 million views.
Dr Grant Brenner is a board certified physician-psychiatrist, an entrepreneur, author, teacher, speaker and not-for-profit board member. He has been featured on a variety of top ranked psychology resources and media as a thought leader and contributor.
Distinguished Fellow of APA (American Psychiatric Association)
Fellow of NYAM (New York Academy of Medicine)
GAP Committee co-Chair (Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Co-Chair of Disasters and the World Committee, Senior Fellow
Assistant Clinical Professor MSBI Mount Sinai Beth Israel
Faculty of Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis, Certificate Program in Trauma Studies, teaches advanced seminar on the Neurobiology of Trauma
Member of the Board of Directors, Vibrant Emotional Health
“The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.”
“Feeling real is more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself... and to have a self into which to retreat for relaxation.”
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”