Media Appearances (Partial List)
| ABC News | HBO: “Vice” | The Trace |
| ABC News “Nightline” | Christian Science Monitor | Sirius XM “Doctor Radio” |
| NBC News | Agence France-Presse | Huffington Post |
| CNN News | Newsweek | Business Insider |
| USA Today | Al Jazeera America | Sinclaire Media/WJLA Washington |
| MSNBC News | Washington Post | Time |
| National Public Radio (NPR) News | Politico | Wall Street Journal |
| NPR “All Things Considered” | BBC World | Bloomberg Law and Health |
| WAMU/NPR “The Diane Rehm Show” | ABC Syndicated Radio | Richmond Times Dispatch |
| Radio Canada | Vox | WAMU/NPR Studio 1A |
On Air/Live Appearances
PBS Newshour, June 8, 2018
Suicide rates have been on the rise for years. Here’s what can help those in crisis:
The latest CDC report found that 54 percent of people who died by suicide over the last two decades did not have a known mental health condition. Amna Nawaz talks with Dr. Liza Gold about risks, treatment and the scope of the problem.
Andrea Mitchell Reports, MSNBC, August 27, 2015
Investigators learn more about gunman’s motive, past: Liza Gold, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, discusses the conversations taking place about workplace violence following the fatal shooting of two television journalists by a former colleague.
https://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/workplace-violence-in-focus-after-shooting-514251331673
PBS Newshour, January 16, 2013
Challenges and Implications of President Obama’s Gun Control Proposals:
To understand the realities of President Obama’s new proposals on gun, Jeffrey Brown gets perspective from Josh Horwitz from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, David Kopel of the Independence Institute, Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Dr. Liza Gold and Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/challenges-and-implications-of-the-president-s-gun-proposals
Georgetown University Law Center
Gun Violence and School Safety, March 26, 2018:
Georgetown University Law Center hosted a panel discussion, organized by Law Professor Lawrence O. Gostin. Dr. Gold: “We do not have more mental illness in this country than in other countries, and we don’t have more angry violent people in this country than in other countries. What we do have is more guns and more access to guns that kill more people more quickly… the strongest connection between mental illness and guns is actually suicide.”
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4730541/mental-illness-relation-gun-violence
https://www.c-span.org/video/?443051-1/georgetown-hosts-discussion-gun-violence
Emanuel A.M.E. Church, Charleston SC:
“Moving from Crisis to Action: A Public Health Approach to Reducing Gun Violence,” December 4, 2015
Dr. Gold represented the American Psychiatric Association at this event that marked the six-month anniversary of a mass shooting at the church in which a gunman killed nine people.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?401027-2/discussion-gun-violence-mental-health
American Psychiatric Association TV: WebsEdgeHealth, Gun Violence and Mental Illness, May 17, 2015. APA TV spoke to Liza H. Gold, MD, Clinical Professor Of Psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Center, to try to separate fact from fiction in the gun violence and mental illness debate, and find out how to help those who are most at risk.
Audio
Vox: Liza Gold on Learned Helplessness #TodayExplained: Liza Gold, Georgetown psychiatry professor, dives into why teens like are making a difference in the debate for #GunReformNow. February 23. 2018. “Learned helplessness is something that develops over time. The Florida teens are too young to have developed this paralyzing sense that nothing can be done. They are like, what? You can’t do anything about this? How ridiculous is that?” https://apple.co/2HIjowH
WAMU/NPR: The Diane Rehm Show, National And International Reaction To The Mass Shooting In Orlando, Florida, June 14, 2016. A panel of guests, including Dr. Liza Gold, discuss the latest on the investigation plus national and international reaction to the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history.
WAMU/NPR: The Diane Rehm Show, Gun Violence in America, August 31, 2015. There are an estimated 33,000 gun related deaths — which include accidents, suicide and murder — every year. The sheer number of guns in the U.S. is clearly a key factor, but many believe Americans’ apparent willingness to accept these gun violence plays an important role.
https://dianerehm.org/shows/2015-08-31/americas-tolerance-for-gun-violence
WAMU/NPR: The Diane Rehm Show, Getting Treatment For Mental Illness, October 15, 2013. We spend $140 billion on public mental health services in this country, but at any given time, approximately half of all seriously mentally ill people receive no treatment at all. Diane and her guests discuss the challenges of getting help for people with severe mental illness.
https://dianerehm.org/shows/2013-10-15/getting-treatment-mental-illness
WAMU/NPR: Studio 1A, Should Students Stay Away from School, May 22, 2018. “Dozens of students have been shot and killed this year alone. What was once an unthinkable strategy has become common enough that some are wondering whether to send their kids to school at all unless something changes.”
https://wamu.org/story/18/05/22/dealing-with-another-school-shooting/
Print Media
Psychiatry and the Law
Capital Gazette: After insanity plea, extensive mental health evaluation is next step for man charged in Capital Gazette shooting case, Alex Mann, May 3, 2019. Discusses conducting mental health evaluations in cases in which defendants plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
https://www.capitalgazette.com/news/ac-cn-psychiatric-evaluation-20190502-story.html
Huffington Post: College Rape Case Highlights Emotional Toll For Victims Who Sue, Tyler Kingkade, August 31, 2015. A former Virginia Wesleyan College student may have to face her alleged rapist and already had to reveal her entire sexual history. An expert witness in the case, Liza Gold, a psychiatry professor at Georgetown University Medical Center, testified that “any arrangement that is not 100 percent foolproof in terms of Ms. Doe having to see, hear, or ‘bump into’ the perpetrator of her sexual assault would frankly be inhumane.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/virginia-wesleyan-rape-lawsuit_n_55ddf19be4b08cd3359e36c7
USA Today: Committing a mentally ill adult is complex, Liz Szabo, January 7, 2013. States have crafted their civil commitment laws to protect civil liberties, in reaction to abusive situations in the past, says Liza Gold, a forensic psychiatrist at the Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington. “People could be held involuntarily for extended lengths of time, even without receiving treatment, just because they were perceived as ‘crazy.'” Now, Gold says, the pendulum has swung “too far,” because the law doesn’t allow patients to be protected from themselves.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/07/mental-illness-civil-commitment/1814301/
Gun Violence
Richmond Times-Dispatch: The General Assembly and firearm regulation reform–base discussions on evidence, June 7, 2019. Dr. Gold encourages gun regulation reform in Virginia after Virginia Beach shooting based on evidence not rhetoric
Washington Post: The Health 202: Here’s one reason the Florida shooter wasn’t blocked from getting a gun, Paige Winfield Cunningham, February 23, 2018
ABC News: Breaking down the NRA-backed theory that a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun, Meghan Keneally, October 29, 2018
The Trace: A Psychiatrist Debunks the Biggest Myths Surrounding Gun Suicides, Kate Masters, November 2, 2015: “If you save someone’s life from a suicide attempt,” says Georgetown professor Liza Gold, “there’s a very good chance that you really are permanently saving their life.”
https://www.thetrace.org/2015/11/gun-suicides-mental-illness-statistics/
New York Times: There’s an awful lot we still don’t know about guns, Quoctrung Bui and Margot Sanger-Katz, March 2, 2018. Dr. Gold is one of the experts queried regarding specific areas for additional research.
Psychiatric Times: Gun Violence and Mental Illness: Talking With Liza H. Gold, MD, Howard L. Forman, MD, August 25, 2016
Big Think: Mentally ill people far more likely to be the victims of mass shootings, than the perpetrators of them, Philip Perry, February 27, 2018. After every mass shooting, a number of politicians and pundits highlight the need for better mental healthcare as a way to hedge against future incidents. But according to Liza H. Gold and Robert I. Simon, the authors of the book Gun Violence and Mental Illness, less than 5% of such shootings are actually perpetrated by someone with a psychiatric disorder.
ABC News: Florida shooting raises awareness of stigma attached to mental illness, Christy Duan, February 15, 2018. Though there may be red flags that predict violence, mental illness is not one of them. Research has shown again and again that mental illness itself does not significantly increase the risk of violence.
Business Insider: Trump and Republicans are blaming mental health for America’s gun problem after the Florida school shooting — here’s why they’re wrong, Michal Kranz and Hilary Brueck, February 15, 2018
https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-shooting-does-mental-illness-lead-to-violence-2018-2
Business Insider: The suspected YouTube shooter was a woman — here’s how rare that is, Hilary Brueck, April 4, 2018
https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-shooter-nasim-aghdam-woman-why-thats-rare-2018-4
Business Insider: An NRA spokeswoman blamed an ‘insane monster’ for the mass shooting in Florida — here’s the truth about mental illness and guns, Hillary Brueck, February 22, 2018. Forensic psychiatrist Liza Gold teaches at Georgetown and edited the book “ Gun Violence and Mental Illness.” Mass shooters tend to be “impulsive and angry about a lot of different things” and many have a history with law enforcement or violence, especially domestic violence, but not necessarily a history of mental illness.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-guns-mental-health-shootings-2018-2
Time: 6 Real Ways We Can Reduce Gun Violence in America, Sean Gregory and Chris Wilson, March 22, 2018. The most effective way to tackle our national problem is to stop thinking of gun control as a political battle and instead see gun violence as a public-health issue. “The public-health model says you intervene in as many places as possible,” says Dr. Liza Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. “There are no magic solutions. There are a lot of solutions.”
http://time.com/5209901/gun-violence-america-reduction/
Washington Post:Top of FormBottom of Form Most mass shooters aren’t mentally ill. So why push better treatment as the answer? Michael Rosenwald, May 18, 2016. “The whole notion of mental illness and mass shootings is so poorly understood,” said Liza Gold, a forensic psychiatrist at Georgetown University and editor of a recent collection of scholarly papers on gun violence and mental illness.
Houston Chronicle: Father calls for gun measures after daughter’s suicide in Spring
Woman’s firearm suicide shows need for more thorough background checks, St. John Barned-Smith, January 27, 2018. “Guns are very easy to use and highly lethal,” said Liza Gold, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and editor and contributing writer of the book, “Gun Violence and Mental Illness.” “Any step you take that delays or postpones or restricts someone’s access to guns creates an opportunity for someone else and intervene to prevent a suicide.”
San Francisco Chronicle: Trump wrong to blame mass killings on mental illness rather than guns, experts say, Joe Garofoli, November 6, 2017. Trump “is not the only person who jumps to that conclusion. It is a popular misconception that people who commit mass shootings must be crazy,” said Liza Gold, a forensic psychiatrist who teaches at Georgetown University and edited “Gun Violence and Mental Illness.”
Business Insider: The men behind the US’s deadliest mass shootings have something in common — and it’s not mental illness, Hilary Bruek, November 7, 2017
Shreveport Times: Mental illness: root cause or red herring? Segann March & USA Today Liz Szabo, December 11, 2015. Mental health isn’t the root of the violence problem in the United States, Gold said, and she believes politicians and others use it as a means to talk about anything but regulating firearms.”It’s become a red herring,” Gold said. “It’s politically inconvenient to talk about firearm regulation in the U.S.”
The Trace: Media Coverage of the Mentally Ill Exaggerates Their Role in Gun Violence, Kate Masters, June 6, 2016. “When there’s intense focus on people with mental illness as dangerous, it just increases negative stereotyping, which makes it difficult for people to ask for help,” Dr. Liza Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and editor of the forthcoming Gun Violence and Mental Illness, told The Trace.
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/06/media-coverage-mentally-ill-exaggerates-role-gun-violence/
Quartz: In Dallas, the primary argument of the NRA and pro-gun advocates was completely debunked, Noah Berlatsky, July 8, 2016. According to Liza Gold, professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, there is no scientific evidence that guns prevent harm, “only occasional anecdotal reports of someone preventing a crime because a person had his or her own gun,” she says. “In contrast, there is overwhelming evidence that owning a gun increases risk of homicide and suicide for the gun owner and anyone else in the home, including partners and children.”
NPR News: What is the psychic toll of gun violence? Barbara J. King, September 3, 2015. The risk of being caught up in a mass shooting carried out by a violent stranger is quite small, as Georgetown University psychiatry professor Liza Gold emphasized on Monday’s Diane Rehm Show. “The number of people who are killed by strangers with guns is less than 1.5 percent a year,” Gold noted. Gold’s comments push us to realize that suicide-prevention and anti-domestic-violence programs are critically important in combating gun violence itself.
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/09/03/437117577/what-is-the-psychic-toll-of-gun-violence
WBUR News (Boston): What Is The Psychic Toll Of Gun Violence? Barbara J. King, September 3, 2015.
https://www.wbur.org/npr/437117577/what-is-the-psychic-toll-of-gun-violence
Newsweek: Charleston Massacre: Mental Illness Common Thread for Mass Shootings, Matthew Lysiak, June 19, 2015.
https://www.newsweek.com/charleston-massacre-mental-illness-common-thread-mass-shootings-344789
Huffington Post: Doctor Groups Gave $162,000 To NRA’s Top Allies In Congress While Pushing Gun Reform, Erin Schumaker and Nick Wing, January 18, 2019. Much of the money these PACs spend on political donations comes from contributions paid to the doctors’ groups by their members, some of whom may not realize their money was used to help elect extremely pro-gun politicians.This pattern of campaign donations goes “beyond hypocrisy,” said Dr. Liza Gold, a psychiatrist and Georgetown University professor who led an unsuccessful push to get the American Psychiatric Association’s PAC to stop giving to pro-gun candidates.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doctors-groups-nra-congress-donations_n_5c40a128e4b0a8dbe16e7e0c
MediaMatters for America: NRA’s news outlet says it’s “fake news” to say there are over 30,000 U.S. gun deaths each year because the figure includes gun suicides, Cydney Hargis, January 8, 2018. Not counting gun suicides as “gun deaths” has been pushed as a right-wing talking point before, but it has no basis in logic. As psychiatrist and Georgetown University professor Liza Gold explained to The Trace, “Firearm violence is firearm violence. Let’s say you have 100 people with lung cancer, and 50 percent of them have it because they were smokers. Are you going to say to the smokers, ‘Your cancer is not as important because you were smoking and you should have known better?’ I don’t think so. You treat them exactly the same. So, firearm violence is firearm violence, whether it’s committed against oneself or committed against others. It’s all bad.”
New York Daily News: Study dismantles NRA mantra that a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun, Megan Cerullo, February 27, 2018. “The NRA is and has been deathly afraid of what firearms research would show about access to firearms and gun violence. They have engaged in multiple activities to prevent evidence-based firearm research and policy that would hurt their constituency, which I would argue are not the law-abiding gun owners in the United States,” Liza Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University’s School of Medicine told ABC News.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/study-dismantles-nra-mantra-supporting-arming-civilians-article-1.3844784
Suicide
Vice News: New CDC Report Shows America’s Gun Suicide Problem Getting Worse, Kate Masters, April 28, 2016. “There’s just no other method of committing suicide that’s as lethal as using a firearm,” Dr. Liza Gold, a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, told the Trace in November. “
ABC News: Robin Williams: the Funny Face of Depression? Linda Carroll, Lisa Tolin and Gil Aegerter, August 12, 2014. A combination of depression or bipolar disorder and continuing struggles with alcohol abuse would be of particular concern in a patient, said Dr. Liza Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University and a forensic psychiatrist. That Williams was fighting addiction at age 63 put him at even higher risk, she said. White males overall have the highest rate of suicide, the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., and that risk rises with age.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/robin-williams-death/robin-williams-funny-face-depression-n178756
Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Eureka Alert: National Academies report on sexual harassment in academia, June 12, 2018
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine:
Dr. Gold listed as member of committee that has recommended that to prevent sexual harassment, academic institutions should go beyond legal compliance to promote a change in culture; current approaches have not led to decline in harassment.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/naos-nar061218.php
Newsweek: Male-on-male sexual harassment on the rise, Krista Gesaman, January 12, 2010. “The classic image of sexual harassment is not two men or even two women,” says Dr. Liza H. Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University who serves as an expert in sexual-harassment suits. Sexual harassment of both genders has more to do with issues of control and abuses of power for the purpose of humiliation than with sexual attraction.”
https://www.newsweek.com/male-male-sexual-harassment-rise-70753
