Lauren Slater - Education and Career

Education and Career

Slater is a freelance writer specializing in psychology, mental illness, and women's health. She graduated in 1985 from Brandeis University with a bachelor’s degree in British and American literature. She earned a master's degree in psychology from Harvard University and a doctorate in psychology from Boston University. Slater was a 2002-03 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the fellowship, part of the Program on Science, Technology and Society in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, her area of study was neuropsychology, psychiatric care, medical technologies, and medical ethics.

Slater was a clinical psychologist for 11 years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She was the director of AfterCare Services, a mental health and substance-abuse clinic in Boston.

She is married to computer programmer Benjamin Alexander. They have two children: Clara and Lucas.

After the birth of her daughter, Slater wrote her memoir Love Works Like This, to chronicle the agonizing decisions she made related to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. In a 2003 BBC Woman's Hour radio interview, and a 2005 article in Child Magazine Slater provides information on depression during pregnancy and the risks to the woman and her baby.