About Dr. Fredric Schiffer
Fredric Schiffer, MD, is an Assistant Professor part-time at Harvard Medical School & Research Associate at McLean Hospital
Dr. Fredric Schiffer is a psychiatrist, researcher, and innovator whose work bridges neuroscience, psychology, and lived human experience. He is an Assistant Professor (Part-Time) at Harvard Medical School, a Research Associate at McLean Hospital, and the Founder and CEO of MindLight LLC.
Over several decades of clinical practice, Dr. Schiffer has treated hundreds of patients with depression, anxiety, trauma, and addiction—experiences that led him to question traditional explanations that focus only on symptoms or adult behavior.
Through this work, Dr. Schiffer came to recognize that psychological suffering very often originates in early emotional trauma—traumas that may be unrecognized, minimized, consciously forgotten, or dismissed as insignificant at the time they occurred. When these early experiences are not understood or integrated, they can quietly shape how one side of the brain learns to protect the individual.
Over time, this protective pattern can feed on itself, contributing to later difficulties such as problems in school, chronic anxiety or depression, troubled relationships, and substance use. In adulthood, these struggles often appear disconnected from their original cause, making them harder to understand and treat.
Dual-Brain Psychology (DBP)
Dr. Schiffer is best known for developing Dual-Brain Psychology (DBP), a framework that recognizes the brain’s two hemispheres as capable of distinct emotional perspectives shaped by life experience. DBP offers a way to understand how early trauma can become embedded in one side of the brain, while the other side retains capacities for resilience, perspective, and healing.
This insight has informed both psychotherapeutic approaches and novel brain-based interventions. Dr. Schiffer is the author of Goodbye Anxiety, Depression, Addiction, and PTSD and the holder of multiple patents related to hemisphere-specific treatment technologies. Through his writing, teaching, and research, he is dedicated to helping people reconnect with the deeper origins of their suffering—and with pathways toward lasting change.
Research and Ongoing Work
Scientific breakthroughs
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Fredric Schiffer, MD
30 Lincoln St, Newton Highlands, MA 02461
+1 (781) 405-8800
fred.schiffermed@gmail.com