Psychological reactions can cause physical symptoms in the most amazing way. When I observed this at 2 a.m. in the E.R. at Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, I was hooked. The magic of psychiatry became my life’s work.
Art Smukler, MD was born and raised in Philadelphia, went to college and medical school in Pennsylvania, and completed his psychiatric training at UCLA. He is a board-certified psychiatrist, specializing in the treatment of adults with a subspecialty in adolescents. As a member of the UCLA faculty, he ran an award-winning psychotherapy conference for psychiatric residents and received the coveted “Golden Ear” award. He has published in psychiatric journals, and won the award for excellence in creative writing at The Santa Barbara Writers Conference.
Now a full-time author, he applies his deep understanding of the human psyche to the motivations of his fictional characters.
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3 thoughts on “The Magic Injection, by Art Smukler, MD, author & Psychiatrist”
That ER moment—the one where the psyche plays pathologies into the body—is where psychiatry reveals its greatest kind of magic. Not sleight of hand, but listening closely enough to the field’s whispers.
You’re describing how meaning bubbles up when mind and body align, when the internal dialogue finally speaks through symptoms. And that’s coherence, not just care. I’ve explored similar terrain through the idea that transformation often arrives after the shift—not before. If it fits, you might find resonance in something I wrote on revelation arriving retroactively: Why Revelation Is Always Retroactive.
Thank you for sharing that fragment of awakening from behind the medical curtain—it’s quietly profound.
Inside The Mind of a Psychiatrist 
That ER moment—the one where the psyche plays pathologies into the body—is where psychiatry reveals its greatest kind of magic. Not sleight of hand, but listening closely enough to the field’s whispers.
You’re describing how meaning bubbles up when mind and body align, when the internal dialogue finally speaks through symptoms. And that’s coherence, not just care. I’ve explored similar terrain through the idea that transformation often arrives after the shift—not before. If it fits, you might find resonance in something I wrote on revelation arriving retroactively: Why Revelation Is Always Retroactive.
Thank you for sharing that fragment of awakening from behind the medical curtain—it’s quietly profound.
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Great story, Art. Based on my experience with you, I’m glad you didn’t go into internal medicine.
I’m reminded of a story about my father but I’ll have to put in in an email as it’s a bit off color.
Mike Busman
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Thank you. I hope your surgery went well. Off-color still works for me. Usually it’s connected to intense feelings. Art
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