Adult/Child Psychiatrist | Grief Specialist
Author | Speaker | Medical Center Faculty
MY PRACTICE
I am an adult, adolescent, and child psychiatrist in practice for 35 years. I focus on 1-1 therapy though I also work with couples and families. My subspecialty is helping people to cope with impending loss or loss that has already occurred and the grief and adjustments that these bring. However, a significant part of my practice is helping people with other issues such as anxiety, depression, life changes or interpersonal struggles.
I believe that talking together is the basis for easing your distress and creating the opportunity for change. I can also offer medication when called for to help alleviate symptoms. When we talk, my approach is honest and collaborative, based on providing a space you can trust and respect for you and your efforts. I listen with care but do not sit silently. We work together to understand your current day-to-day experience and your past as well as how they may interact to form who you are now. Clarity, insight and thinking through problem-solving approaches all help you to face life’s challenges.
MY MOST RECENT BOOK
Release Date: August 30, 2022
Giving Hope
Conversations with Children About Illness, Death, and Loss
Elena Lister MD and co-author Michael Schwartzman PhD with Lindsey Tate
Avery imprint of Penguin Random House
This book is for any adult who may be taking care of a child. It offers compassionate and comprehensive guidance on how to understand oneself and the child facing impending loss or a loss that has occurred. We discuss how to have conversations with a child about death itself and many kinds of losses including of an immediate family member, of a pet, of someone in your community or extended family and in the media whether by illness, suicide, environmental events or violence when they occur and in the years after. It offers sample conversations and practical guidance. It will help a caregiver handle decisions about participation at school, at funerals, burials and memorials when there is illness or death in a child’s life. Our approach creates opportunities for more connection with your child while building hope and resilience.
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REVIEWS
What a gem you are holding! No less, about, perhaps, the hardest of subjects there ever was. The authors have eased what is easable, and they’ve held kind space for the rest. Dip in and out to suit, or read it straight through. You’ll learn about the unfathomable, about the inner life of kids, how to be there for them, and you’ll learn a lot about yourself, too.”
CREDENTIALS
Weill Cornell Medical Center
- Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
- Cameron Kravitt Foundation Death and Bereavement Seminar: speaker on the death of a child to Pediatric Medicine Residents
- Associate Attending
New York Presbyterian – Columbia
- Senior Consulting Analyst for Grief at Columbia Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research
- Lecturer at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and at Columbia Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research
- Teaching humanism in medicine to medical students at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons including how to talk with a very ill or dying child
- Creator, former director, and current teacher of the analytic writing program at Columbia Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research
Other Roles
- The Public Communication Award, given by Columbia Psychoanalytic Center, June 2024.
- Consultant to many schools, companies and organizations across the country when there is a serious illness, death or major transition in their community.
- Member of the Study Group on Psychoanalytic Writing of the American Psychoanalytic Association since its inception in 2019.
- Volunteer “Grief Chief” at Camp Erin: a non-profit sleepaway camp that is free for grieving children ages 7-16 under the auspices of the Eluna network and the COPE foundation.
- Grief education advisor to Nest Foundation, a non-profit organization forming a K-12 curriculum nationally to mitigate violence and enhance wellness, helping to create a curriculum to teach about death and grief in the schools
- Advisor to KidsPT TV show for hospitalized or very ill children to help support them and help them to understand what happens in treatment
Licensed in CA, CT, FL, MA, ME, MN, NJ, NY, PA, RI
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
I Will Remember You: A Guidebook Through Grief for Teens
Laura Dower (journalist) and Elena Lister MD, Scholastic Inc 2001
This is a book that a teen can use on their own to understand grief and how they are reacting to many kinds of loss. There are examples from other teens who have written or spoken about their experiences. It includes activities a teen can do in writing, music or art and has an extensive list of resources consisting of books on grief, and guides to poetry, music and organizations.
Lister, Elena. (2001). Liza’s Death: A Personal Recollection. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Vol 21(3), pp. 243-249.
This is a paper in a professional journal written by me about the illness and then death of my own daughter at age 6 of leukemia.
Lister, Elena, et al. (2008). I Write to Know What I Think: a Four-Year Writing Curriculum. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Vol 56(4), pp. 1231-1247.
This paper describes the psychoanalytic writing program that I created at Columbia Psychoanalytic Center and is used as a model for psychoanalytic writing programs across the nation.
RECENT MEDIA
Newspaper / Magazine / Journals
“40 Best Sympathy Gifts to Show You Care 2024” U.S. News & World Report, July 19 2024.
“Talking to Children About Cancer” The New York Times, Letter to the Editor, March 22 2024.
“Saying Goodbye to the Dead. (Again.)” The New York Times, July 14 2023.
“Living With the Loss of a Child: ‘I Feel Your Pain, Sarah Wildman’” The New York Times, Letter to the Editor, May 28 2023.
“Talking to Children About ‘the Harshest Realities'” The New York Times, Letter to the Editor, February 22 2023.
“Inside the Metaverse Meetups That Let People Share on Death, Grief, and Pain”, TechnologyReview.com, January 12, 2023. Elena Lister quoted by journalist Hana Kiros.
Podcasts / Interviews
“Interviewing a Dying Man Two Weeks Before He Died – Philip & Elena Lister” – DEAD Talks, July 1, 2024.
“Talking to Kids About Death with Elena Lister and Michael Schwartzman” – Peaceful Exit, April 23, 2024.
“Are There Rules? ft. Dr. Elena Lister” – Grief Circle with Sammy, March 26, 2024.
“How to Cope Amid Tragedy” – Health Matters, October 19, 2023.
“Living with Grief and Finding Hope After Loss” – Health Matters, October 18, 2023.
“Having Tough Conversations with Your Kids” – Raising Healthy Kid Brains, February 9, 2023.
“Death Ed” – PediPal podcast about pediatric palliative care, January 31, 2023.
“Kids Need to Talk About Death, Too” – KERA’S Think Podcast, January 10, 2023.
“Conversations with Children About Illness, Death, & Loss” – Jenny Lisk Podcast, January 3, 2023.
Blogs
“Facing Life’s Challenges”, Psychology Today Ongoing Blog.
Radio
The Valder Beebe Show, September 15 2022, 10am-10:15am EST.
Bob Gourley Issues Today Radio, September 8 2022.
The Scott Briggaman Show, WPTF-AM, September 7 2022.
Warren Lawrence Show, #1 News-Talk WKNY-AM, September 1 2022.
RECENT SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
A Short Good Life, Annual Conference of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), a panel discussion of the book and working with ill and dying children (October 2024)
Giving Hope: Conversations with Children About Illness, Death, and Loss, Grand Rounds to Dept. of Pediatrics, Weill Cornell Medical Center, on talking with children about illness, death and loss (October 2023)
Giving Hope: Conversations with Children About Illness, Death, and Loss, Grand Rounds to Dept. of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical Center, on talking with children about illness, death and loss (September 2023)
Helping A School Community Cope with Loss, Harvard Westlake School, Los Angeles, CA (March 2023)
Dealing with Loss in a School Community, Elisabeth Morrow School, Englewood, NJ (October 2022)
Faculty and Staff Support Dealing with the Death of a Child, Kohelet Yeshiva , Merion, PA (June 2022)
Helping Families Deal with Loss in their Community, The Lawrenceville School, Lawrence Township, NJ (May 2022)
