Professionals in Crisis Program

Michael D. Groat, PhD

Director of the Professionals in Crisis (PIC) Program, The Menninger Clinic; assistant professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Groat works with a team of mental health specialists who treat men and women in business ownership, upper management, medicine, sports, law, entertainment, education and other high-performance fields who are experiencing difficulty managing their career and relationships because of psychiatric disorder, addiction, demands and stressors. As program director, he supervises administrative and clinical aspects of the PIC Program and provides clinical services including group and individual therapy and psychological assessment.

Before coming to Menninger Dr. Groat served as an associate psychologist for Capital District Psychiatric Center, Albany, NY. His interests concern psychodynamic psychotherapy, personality assessment and therapeutic communities. He co-authored a book chapter on personality assessment in the Handbook of Clinical Psychology and he has taught and lectured on a variety of topics ranging from the origins and development of psychoanalysis, depression, personality assessment and working with patients with treatment refractory psychiatric disorders.

Dr. Groat received his master’s degree at Miami University, Oxford, OH, and his doctor of counseling psychology degree from the State University of New York, Albany. He interned at Albany Psychology Internship Consortium, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY; completed a four-year psychology fellowship in psychodynamic psychotherapy, group and systems consultation, and family work at the Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, MA; and from 2006 to 2008 he began his candidacy in psychoanalytic training at the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute, Stockbridge, MA.

The American Psychoanalytic Association named Dr. Groat a Fellow in 2003-2004. He was a 2004 fellow of the Psychoanalytic Research Training Program at the Anna Freud Centre at the Yale Child Study Center and Western New England Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a member of American Psychological Association, Society for Personality Assessment, National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology and the American Psychoanalytic Association.