Wendy Rapaport

Wendy Satin Rapaport, L.S.C.W., Psy.D., licensed CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, was Adjunct Professor of Medicine  at the Diabetes Research Institute, University of Miami Medical School and is presently Adjunct Professor at the University of Maine Graduate School of Social Work, teaching group therapy in health settings.  

Dr. Rapaport has specialized in individual, marital, family, and group therapy for patients with diabetes for more than 40 years.  She has written four books, two book chapters, and published more than 60 articles on this subject. Her doctoral dissertation was on “Humor as a Coping Mechanism in Diabetes” finding that humor could be cultivated as a coping mechanism for well being and effectiveness. She has been trying to make people laugh and find their own sense of humor since then.  

In 1999, she was awarded the National Health Information Award for her book, When Diabetes Hits Home: The Whole Family’s Guide to Emotional Health. In it, she addresses the challenges facing people with diabetes, both those who are newly diagnosed and those who have lived with diabetes for many years, as well as strategies for the management of diabetes through actions and attitudes for everyone involved. Her next book in 2014 with co-author Janis Roszler was written for health professionals, Behavioral Approach: Changing the dynamic between patient and professional in diabetes care.  

In between those two books was her tribute to writing poetry as a mental health asset in her book On the Couch with a good enough poet; how an average neurotic became an average poet, happily psychologizing along the way. 

She wrote another book of political protest called What do We Tell the Children? 

Dr. Rapaport has given lectures, taught, and run groups for forty years with health professionals, patients and their families. She teaches lay people to reach out to the psychosocial needs of patients with diabetes and started the PEP Squad, the Diabetes Research Institute’s training for mothers to become mentors to other newly diagnosed families with diabetes. 

Dr. Rapaport’s firm professional belief that we all need constructive connection, (and not just from our psychologists) led her to her newest book with co-author -and lifelong friend -psychoanalyst Dr. Sanda Bernstein, Friendship Matters. In it they explore the joy, the necessity, and the skill of creating friendships that enhance all our relationships.