Charles Barber (born 1962) is an American author and Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University who writes narrative nonfiction books about medicine, psychiatry, and criminal justice.

Education and influences

Barber attended Harvard University, where he studied with and was greatly influenced by the psychiatrist and writer Robert Coles. After attending graduate school at Columbia University, Barber worked for ten years with the homeless mentally ill in New York City. He worked in shelters at Bellevue and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and in supportive housing programs. Later, he worked in the criminal justice system in Connecticut, in prisons and halfway houses. Before becoming an author, he co-published scholarly works in criminal justice and psychiatry.

Writing

In 2005, Barber published Songs from the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors, an account of his work with the homeless and also the story of his own experiences with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The New England Journal of Medicine compared the book to William Styron’s Darkness Visible and Sylvia Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind. In 2008, Barber published Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, a critique of the over-use of psychiatric medications, particularly antidepressants, to treat and medicate everyday life problems. Comfortably Numb was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and was called "a blockbuster" by Library Journal. Barber published Citizen Outlaw: One Man's Journey from Gang Leader to Peacekeeper about reformed New Haven gangster William Outlaw in late 2019. Barber and Outlaw appeared on The Today Show and on C-SPAN's Book TV. In 2022, Barber published Peace & Health: How a group of small-town activists and college students set out to change healthcare, about the fifty-year history of the Community Health Center and the center's CEO Mark Masselli. Barber has spoken nationally about the book, appearing with Masselli and Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper. In May 2023, Grand Central Publishing released Barber's In the Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries Old Medical Mystery and took on the U.S. Army. The Wall Street Journal described In the Blood as "the captivating, often cinematic story of how a medical innovation was improbably developed, fiercely resisted, and ultimately adopted". The book was a finalist for the 2024 PEN America/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and was named an Amazon Editor's Pick for Best Books of 2023 So Far.

Lectures and affiliations

Barber has lectured nationally and internationally at colleges, medical schools, and mental health advocacy organizations. He is a Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University and a Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. At Yale, he is editor of The Perch, an arts journal with a mental health theme.

Published works