Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD is the author of (Quill Driver Books, 2010).
She runs several websites, including one that served as inspiration for her book: Archetype Writing. She is one of the five writers for the QueryTracker Blog, which is one of Writer's Digest's 101 Top Sites for writers.
She is often quoted in magazines and newspapers and on websites as an expert resource.
Bio
Carolyn Kaufman was pursuing a writing degree at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio when she discovered how much an understanding of psychology could add to her stories. By her senior year, she'd not only subjected most of Shakespeare's plays to psychodynamic analysis, she'd decided to pursue her doctorate in clinical psychology.
She spent two years in digital publishing before going on to Wright State University's School of Professional Psychology in Dayton, Ohio. Though friends and family often asked if working with severe problems like domestic violence and PTSD was depressing, she always maintained that seeing people who wanted to improve their lives was something to get excited about.
During this time, she became aware of the discrepancies between what she was learning in school and seeing in her office and the psychology in popular fiction and nonfiction. Committed to finding ways to bridge that gap, she wrote her dissertation on improving the accuracy of the psychology that appeared in women's popular periodicals. Or, as she explained it to most people, "I'm teaching shrinks how to write for Cosmo."
After she completed her degree, she was offered a full-time teaching job at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio—the perfect opportunity to teach lots of people about the differences between "real" psychology and popular misconceptions! Around that time she also began working with writers to help them get the psychology right in their stories.
In addition to her job as a now-tenured professor, she continues to work with writers and serves as an expert source for journalists, appearing in publications ranging from magazines like Marie Claire and Wired to newspapers like The Boston Globe and books like Andrea Kay's Work's a Bitch and then You Make It Work. She particularly enjoys stories that explore the psychology of fictional media, such as the Wired News article on how Anakin Skywalker should be diagnosed.