Richard F. Summers, MD is Senior Residency Advisor and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He served as Co-Director of Residency Training at Penn from 1998 to 2017.
Dr. Summers is a nationally recognized educator, author and clinician. He is Treasurer of the American Psychiatric Association and a Past President of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training (AADPRT). He chaired the APA Workgroup on Psychiatrist Wellbeing and Burnout from 2017 to 2020.
Dr. Summers has written on psychodynamic therapy, residency training, physician wellbeing and burnout, therapeutic alliance, and positive psychology. His book, Psychodynamic Therapy: A Guide to Evidence Based Practice, co-authored with Jacques Barber, is currently used in over forty training programs. His subsequent co-edited books include: Practicing Psychodynamic Therapy: A Casebook (2014), Positive Psychiatry: A Casebook (2018) and Combating Physician Burnout: A Guide for Psychiatrists (2019).
Dr. Summers was awarded the Earl Bond Outstanding Teacher Award of the Department of Psychiatry at Penn in 2000, the Robert Dunning Dripps Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Psychiatric Educator of the Year by the Philadelphia Psychiatric Society in 2007. He was Teacher of the Year at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia in 2008, and Outpatient Teacher of the Year Award in 2002, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2017 in the Penn Department of Psychiatry. He received the University of Pennsylvania Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2014 and a Special Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association in 2019. He has been a Philadelphia Magazine Top Doc for many years.
Dr. Summers’ clinical interests focus on psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacologic treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, and adult lifecycle development. He serves on the Editorial Board of American Psychiatric Association Publishing, and is an Associate Editor of Tasman’s Psychiatry, 5th Ed., eds. Tasman, Riba, Alarcon, et al.
Dr. Summers received a B.A. from Harvard College in 1979, graduating magna cum laude in sociology, and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Following psychiatry residency at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Summers completed psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, on whose faculty he currently serves.