Stephen Stahl

Stephen Michael Stahl is an author and professor of psychiatry with expertise in psychopharmacology. He is currently a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and honorary fellow in the psychiatry department at the University of Cambridge. He is the chairman of Neuroscience Education Institute (NEI) and Arbor Scientia Group. He is the director of psychopharmacology Services at the California Department of State Hospitals and the editor-in-chief of CNS Spectrums.

Education and early career Stahl was born in Wauseon, Ohio and raised in Bryan, Ohio. In 1973, he completed his B.S. degree from Northwestern University and received his M.D. there in 1975. In 1976, he received his Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology from the University of Chicago. Later he trained in internal medicine at the University of Chicago, in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, and in psychiatry at Stanford University. He is board certified in psychiatry. In 1981, he completed his residency in psychiatry at Stanford and became the assistant director of the Stanford Mental Health Clinical Research Center and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral Sciences at Stanford University Medical School where he worked until 1985.

Career Academic career Stahl joined Stanford University in 1981 as an assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences and taught there till 1985 when he became an adjunct associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences and pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles while working and living overseas in the UK where he taught at the Institute of Psychiatry, London as a Senior Lecturer and at the Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, London also as a Senior Lecturer. He served as an honorary consultant in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, London from 1985 – 1988. In 1988, he joined University of California, San Diego as professor of psychiatry and chief of psychiatry at the San Diego Veterans Affairs Hospital. Currently he is an adjunct professor at the University of California San Diego.

In 2009, he was selected as an honorary senior visiting fellow by the University of Cambridge. He also directs psychopharmacology services and academic programs for the California Department of State Hospital System, where he also heads their assessment and treatment efforts to reduce violence.

Career in hospitals and pharmaceutical industry In 1981, he became the director of Movement Disorders & Psychopharmacology Research Clinic at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Palo Alto and chief of the Schizophrenia Biological Research Center and served there till 1985. He also serves as a member of the scientific advisory board for the psychiatric genomics company Genomind.

Works Stahl is author of over 500 articles and book chapters and more than 1600 scientific presentations and abstracts. He has written 35 text books and edited 12 others, including Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology and Essential Psychopharmacology Prescriber's Guide.

Stahl's interests relate to producing and disseminating educational information about diseases and their treatments in psychiatry and neurology, with an emphasis on multimedia, the internet.

Stahl had a major input related to revelations about inadequate mental health care in the US Army and at Fort Hood. His role was to train caregivers of wounded soldiers and ensure that the current system was appropriate.

Partial bibliography Essential Psychopharmacology. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1996. 2000. 2008. 2013. 2021. Psychopharmacology of Antidepressants. Martin Dunitz Press, London and Mosby, New York, 1997. Psychopharmacology of Antipsychotics. Martin Dunitz Press, London, 1999. Essential Psychopharmacology of Depression and Bipolar Disorder. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York, 2000. Illustrated Insights – Sleep: Excessive Sleepiness. NEI Press, Carlsbad, CA 2005. Essential Psychopharmacology: The Prescribers Guide Cambridge University Press, New York, New York, 2005. 2006. 2009. 2011. 2014. 2017. 2021. 2024. Stahl’s Illustrated: Chronic Pain and Fibromyalgia. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York 2009. Stahl's Self Assessment Examination in Psychiatry: Multiple Choice Questions for Clinicians. Cambridge University Press, 2012. 2016. Shell Shock: A Gus Conrad Thriller, Harley House Press, 2015.

Awards and distinctions