From Psychologist to Author: A Tale of Two Professions

I’m a former clinical psychologist with a specialization in childhood trauma so the question I get asked the most is, “Are your books real?” The answer to that is a disturbing yes. Everything I write is loosely based on my personal experiences with clients.

Back in the day, when I was pitching myself to agents for representation, that was my hook—the female Jonathan Kellerman. Ironically enough, we both worked as predoctoral interns at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and studied at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. While Kellerman spent most of his psychology career in private practice and as a professor, I spent most of mine in child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric facilities, where the plots for most of my books were born.

At first glance, psychology and writing may seem like two different professions made up of different skills but surprisingly, the two are quite similar. The skills that made me a good psychologist are the same ones that make me a good writer.

Being a skilled psychologist means setting aside your own way of viewing and experiencing the world in order to get inside someone else’s head. It’s impossible to help people if you only see them through the lens with which you view the world. You have to be able to suspend your beliefs about life in order to understand someone else’s.

It’s a similar process when it comes to writing and getting inside a character’s head which is necessary if you want to create authentic, compelling characters. I approach my characters in the same way I approached my clients. Who are you? Not who you say you are or who you pretend to be, but who are you really? What do you do when no one is looking? 

In addition to being a psychologist, I’ve always been a writer; I was telling stories long before I could write. In second grade, I begged my parents for a typewriter until they finally consented and I taught myself how to type. My favorite gift was a subscription to Writer’s Digest that came the following year for my birthday.

By fourth grade, I’d written my first full length novel and I attended all the local young writer’s conferences in middle school. But even as a child, I was attracted to the dark side of human nature and relationships. After my mom finished reading my stories, she used to ask, “can’t you write anything happy?”

The truth about psychologists, especially those that work in trauma, is that we don’t get there by mistake. Most of our lives have been impacted by trauma in some way. I was no different. I got into psychology first to heal myself and then, like so many of my fellows, to heal others. 

So, psychology married my two passions—helping people and telling stories—and my experience working at inpatient psychiatric facilities spilled over into characters and situations that have formed the basis of all my books. This has never been more evident than in my current book, The Secrets of Us.

It pulls from the darkest corners of my most disturbing case notes to create a pulse-pounding exploration of a disturbed psyche. The book alternates between past and present timelines with the current timeline taking place within a locked psychiatric facility. One of the main characters is put there after trying to set fire to her own house with her husband inside it. Eventually, she’s diagnosed with a rare psychiatric disorder that I’m sure nobody except myself has ever heard of. It’s a detailed case study turned on its head.

I’m fairly certain that my books wouldn’t resonate with readers the way that they do if it weren’t for the hours I spent trying to unlock the troubled minds of those who came to me for help. Up until September 2018, I was the Assistant Director of Evidence-Based Practices at UCLA’s National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. For years, I wrote in between my “real” job doing most of my writing after my ex-husband and son were asleep or squeezing it into any spare minute I could find. I’ve written chapters while inching my way in traffic down the 405 freeway. After signing a two-book deal with Thomas & Mercer, I stepped down to write full-time and I’ve never looked back. 

Former colleagues and friends often ask if I miss practicing psychology now that I officially write fulltime. But that’s not how I see it—I still practice psychology even though I’m not seeing patients or working in an academic institution. My books help people explore aspects of human nature and the complexity of human experiences that they might not have considered previously and they do so in a way that’s less threatening than real life. I still view myself as a teacher and an educator; shining light into the darkest of places. Storytelling is a powerful tool to open people’s minds in a way that you can’t do from a non-fiction or traditional standpoint. So, despite what it might look like, I haven’t stepped away from psychology—I’m just getting started. 

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Dr. Lucinda Berry is a former clinical psychologist and leading researcher in childhood trauma. Now, she spends her days writing full-time where she uses her clinical experience to blur the line between fiction and nonfiction. She enjoys taking her readers on a journey through the dark recesses of the human psyche. Her work has been optioned for film and translated into multiple languages.

If Berry isn’t chasing after her son, you can find her running through Los Angeles, prepping for her next marathon. To hear about her upcoming release The Secrets of Us, visit her on Facebook or sign up for her newsletter at https://lucindaberry.com/

Dangerously addictive, The Secrets of Us is a pulse-pounding exploration of a disturbed psyche and the bond between two sisters desperate to escape a troubled past.

Foster sisters Krystal and Nichole have always been there for each other, so when Nichole is committed to a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill her husband, Krystal drops everything to defend her.

Scarred by a hard upbringing, Nichole and Krystal managed to construct comfortable lives for themselves. Krystal became a respected lawyer, and Nichole was happily married to an architect—until Nichole starts raving that her husband isn’t her husband, believing that he’s an imposter.

Driven by fierce loyalty, Krystal starts asking questions, but she’s not sure she can bear the answers. Her investigation leads to the sisters’ dark shared past…to a horrible tragedy and a well-guarded lie that cemented their sisterly bond.

But that lie can’t kill the truth—the battered, gasping, clawing truth that’s coming for them both. Now Krystal and Nichole must both fight for the lives they’ve built before they’re consumed by the one they left behind.

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Us-Lucinda-Berry-ebook/dp/B08FC2LM3W