Maurice G. Marcus ,M.D. is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. In his clinical practice over the past 35 years, he has psychoanalyzed in depth a significant number of successful professionals including senior executives. This experience enabled him to gain meaningful understandings of the variety of psychological problems–internal, interpersonal, and organizational–that impede effective performance of executives and other leaders. It also provided him with knowledge of how these problems can be resolved and how inhibited, potential abilities can become actual skills.

Early in his career, he served as the first director of a large, multipurpose psychiatric clinic at Yale Medical School. In this position, he designed and implemented an original organizational structure and assumed responsibility for a large professional staff, which included 16 physicians. Later, he was the director of the psychiatric inpatient service at Mr. Zion Hospital (University of California, San Francisco Medical School). Leading and managing groups of professionals under demanding and stressful circumstances enhanced his awareness of the problems and opportunities inherent in a leadership position. These first–hand managerial experiences also enriched his knowledge of the complexities of organizional life.

Dr. Marcus was one of the first psychoanalysts in America to engage in group relations training, brought to this country by the British psychoanalysts from the Tavistock Institute in London. This approach focuses on the discovery and elucidation of unconscious processes in the psychological dynamics of small groups, large groups, and intergroup transactions, and formal organizations. Subsequently, he used this training to improve his performance in the leadership positions described above and in the role of Senior Psychiatric Consultant to the Peace Corps. He became a trainer and consultant in a number of group relations conferences sponsored by the A.K. Rice Institute for Social Relations. In 1978, he was appointed a fellow of that institute. This involvement in the group relations’ field, coupled with his psychoanalytic work with individuals, has provided him with a unique perspective on the dilemmas encountered in organizational life.

His consulting work has included meeting with boards and executive teams to assist them in understanding the psychological dimensions of their organizations’ activities, thereby enabling them to work out solutions to their particular predicaments. He has also coached board presidents and senior executives, helping them to be more effective in their work, particularly in their role as leaders. His approach is one of collaboration with his clients to not only address immediate issues but also to facilitate their learning a more psychologically sophisticated perspective that they can use in the future.

For many years, Dr. Marcus has been an active teacher. He was a faculty member at Yale Medical School and the University of California, San Francisco, Medical School. He has been a guest lecturer at Smith College, the University of California Berkeley, and at the Wright Institute, Berkeley. He is on the faculty of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society, where is also a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst and a member of the Board of Trustees.

He is a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Association for Occupational and Organizational Psychiatry, the International Psychoanalytic Association, and the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations.

Dr. Marcus is a graduate of Oberlin College and Case-Western Reserve Medical School. He interned in internal medicine at Yale Medical School, was a resident in psychiatry at Yale, and a fellow in psychiatry at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He completed his psychoanalytic training at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis in New Haven, Connecticut. For 15 years he was an invited member of the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, where distinguished psychoanalysts from around the country meet twice yearly to present their work and advance psychoanalytic knowledge. In 2005 he was listed in “Best Doctors in the Bay Area ” and “Best Doctors in America ”.