Irwin Gootnick, M.D. is a renowned psychiatrist, speaker, and self-help author. On MSNBC, he shares how family issues including guilt and rebellion can become mental triggers for weight gain, his tips for weight loss, and why diets often don't work.

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Dr. Gootnick is a Board Certified Psychiatrist who has been in private practice for 40 years. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco and is a leading member of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. Dr. Gootnick was the Executive Director and the Director of Psychiatry at the Psychiatric Day Center of San Francisco.

Dr. Gootnick has lectured to audiences around the country on a variety of popular topics. His audiences have included university students (including Duke University, Columbia University, University of California San Francisco, and others), the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists, the California Society of Clinical Social Workers, and the Annual Bay Area Psychological Association Conference. He has also lectured at high schools, parent/teacher associations, to religious clerics, and multiple business organizations.

Dr. Gootnick is the author of two books, in which he explains how to unlock self-defeating behaviors and offers strategies for self-help:

1. Why You Behave in Ways You Hate, and What You Can Do About It
2. Self-Help for Smarties: Secret Success Codes for Weight Loss, Love, Career and Parenting

Dr. Gootnick and his wife, Susan, have two grown children. They live in Northern California.