Gerald is a psychoanalyst, who has studied human behavior for a long time. He has used that expertise to formulate hypotheses about social issues, like feminism, civil rights, and most recently mass shootings in America.
Some of his views have been called insensitive or offensive. For example, in trying to explore how to stop mass shootings, one of his ideas is to regulate who is allowed to parent a child. The thought being that ineffective child rearing (among other social/cultural issues) is leading to a number of mass shootings.
That type of idea is the exact one I want to explore on the show. I want us to swim in the nuance, sensitivity, and uncomfortableness. Not for the shock factor, but because genuinely exploring these types of ideas allows us to learn.
If it is a horrible idea, then let us rip it apart and examine it to see. I fully understand that words can do damage and these topics can be difficult to discuss. But my hope is that this show is able to walk the line of being open minded/exploring, while at the same time holding people accountable and calling out things that seem harmful.
A more complete bio from Gerald is below:
Gerald Schoenewolf, Ph.D. is a licensed psychoanalyst who has been practicing in New York for over 45 years. During that time he has offered numerous presentations at conferences and published 30 books and numerous papers in professional journals, including "The Myth of Sexual Abuse." Other papers offer original theories on the death trauma, gender narcissism and autism. InThe Mass Killer: Six Case Histories That Tell Us Why, he directs his psychoanalytic knowledge and research to an examination of the how and why of mass killings, exploring the psychology and social psychology of six notorious cases.
Dr. Schoenewolf is a noted psychoanalyst, listed on Wikipedia, with a world-wide reputation. In addition to his writings on psychology, he has also published nine novels, translated two books of philosophy, written, directed and produced two feature films. and wrote and illustrated a book of poetry and a DVD of video poems. He currently lives in Bethlehem, PA with his wife, Julia, his parrot, Lucky, and his cats, Minnie and Max.