Fred Berlin


Frederick S. "Fred" Berlin is an American psychiatrist and sexologist specializing in sex offenses.

Life and career

Berlin studied psychology, earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964, a master's degree from Fordham University in 1966, and a Ph.D. from Dalhousie University in 1972. He earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Dalhousie in 1974. Following a clerkship at Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was an intern at McGill University School of Medicine, Jewish General Hospital, and Children's Hospital in Montreal. He completed a psychiatric residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and served as an exchange resident at Maudsley Hospital in London, England. After serving as chief resident at Johns Hopkins, he was appointed to its Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.as assistant professor in 1978 and promoted to associate professor in 1986. He has been an attending physician there since 1978 and served as founder and director of its Sexual Disorders Clinic from 1980 to 1992. In 1992 he founded the National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma and serves as its director.
Berlin served on the Subcommittee on the Paraphilias, American Psychiatric Association committee on the third revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from 1984 to 1989. He received a Presidential Citation from the City of Baltimore in 1996 and was named a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2003. In 2009 he was invited to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on the subject of sexually disordered sexual offenders including those with pedophilia.
Memberships include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.
He has appeared as an expert witness in trials including the murder trial of Mark Dean Schwab and Jeffrey Dahmer. He has discussed the merits of chemical castration for sex offenders.

Selected publications