Credentials

I have many years of experience in a private practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy.  I am an American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology certified psychiatrist, and am certified by the American Board of Addiction Medicine.

After completing an internship in internal medicine, I completed a psychiatry residency at UCSF. I am completing a 2 year integrative medicine fellowship and am also on their faculty.

I have been a senior faculty member, and the Behavioral and Addiction Medicine Director, for a UCSF-affiliated internal medicine residency, where I supervised residents and taught patient-physician communication and behavioral health. I also founded and directed the first premedical student health coach project.

I am the founder of:
Abramowitz Healthy Communicating.com

Awards

Award for exceptional psychotherapeutic skills and unusual concern for the welfare of patients
Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, UCSF

Humanist Medicine Award
Division of Primary Care Internal Medicine, 
Alameda Health Center

Other Affiliations

  • Former UCSF consultation psychiatry faculty member
  • Former California School of Professional Psychology faculty member
​I've given grand rounds at Stanford University, Alameda Health Center, Kaiser-Permanente and elsewhere. I've spoken on various topics, including: health coaching; mindfulness; self management support; treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, alcoholism, cannabis and prescription drug abuse; motivational interviewing & stages of change.

Publications, Talks, 
Courses Taught
(partial list)

TALKS
(partial list):
​
Integrative Addiction Medicine: What is it? What is the Evidence? ASAM national meeting;
CSAM conference plenary speaker

Behavioral Treatments: Engaging Patients from Diagnosis to Treatment, CSAM conference plenary speaker

Integrating Empathy in Hospitalist Medicine Practice, Eden Hospital

Behavioral Health and Patient Engagement in Chronic Pain Primary Care Treatment, Calif Healthcare Foundation, 

Mindfulness, Alameda Health System 

Training on Substance Use Disorders
Partnership Health Plan

Motivational Interviewing and Stages of Change, CSAM conference plenary speaker

Self Management Support: Helping Patients Help Themselves, CSAM conference, plenary speaker
​PUBLICATIONS
(partial list):
​
Mindfulness. chapter in: ASAM, editor. Chronic Pain and Addiction. Oxford University Press: to be published 2018.

Integrative Addiction Medicine: What Exactly Is It? San Francisco Medicine: Addiction Medicine 2015 July/August

with Bodenheimer T. Helping Patients Help Themselves: How to Implement Self-Management Support, California Healthcare Foundation, 2010. . 

with Flattery D, Franses K, Berry L. Linking a motivational interviewing curriculum to the chronic care model. J Gen Intern Med. 2010 Sep;25 Suppl 4:S620-6.

with Cohen, J.
Psychodynamics of AIDS: A View from Self Psychology. chapter in Therapists on the Front Line, 1994.
​COURSES & WORKSHOPS
(partial list):

Faculty- Safe Prescribing Residency Action Group: Chronic Pain & Opioid Misuse, Calif Healthcare Foundation

Motivational Interviewing and Self-Management Support, Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, Calif Society of Addiction Medicine, Alameda Health System, Contra Costa County Hospital, USC School of Medicine and others

Health Effects of Violence, Society of General Internal Medicine

Women's Psychology, Calif School of Professional Psychology 

Self Psychology, Calif School of Professional Psychology