Diane Kaufman, MD

Passion to Transform Trauma into Creative Resilience

Imagination and creative expression have always been Diane’s source of release, insight, and renewal. Diane is a child psychiatrist, poet, and artist. She is an Arnold P. Gold Foundation “humanism in medicine” awardee.  “Bird That Wants to Fly,” inspired a children’s opera by Michael Raphael, performed by Trilogy: An Opera Company, and narrated by the actor, Danny Glover. Diane’s poetry turned into co-creative songs, “Don’t Give Up,” Lift You Up,” and “Hold On,” have won international awards. With ASHA International and grant support from the Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Diane initiated the Create Resilience Youth Mental Health Campaign. She is also the founder of the Hold On Suicide Prevention Outreach Campaign. 

Diane suffered trauma starting at a very young age, and experienced episodes of anxiety, depression, hypomania, and suicidal ideation. She graduated magna cum laude and phi beta kappa from Mount Holyoke College. While attending Downstate Medical Center, Diane attempted suicide and required hospitalization. She went on to complete internships, residencies, and fellowships (pediatrics, psychiatry, and child psychiatry) at New York University/Bellevue Hospital.   

Prior to moving to Portland, Oregon in 2014, Diane was an outpatient child psychiatrist for twenty-eight years at UMDNJ, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in Newark (now Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences). She was Assistant Professor at New Jersey Medical School and was Medical Director of both Preschool Services and the Crisis Intervention Mobile Outreach Program. Diane received many grants on behalf of children’s well-being, such as Parents are People Too!, a parenting and child abuse prevention program rated “exemplary” by the Children’s Trust Fund. Diane also initiated UMDNJ’s Poetry in Medicine Day, inspired Creative Arts Healthcare, and developed the Cry of the Heart poetry contest. 

Upon her move to Oregon, Diane initially worked as a child psychiatrist at Morrison Child and Family Services in Portland. Since November 2016, she provides child psychiatry care and treatment at Mind Matters, PC in Hillsboro. Upon her retirement in June 2023, she will continue full force in her efforts to prevent suicide in her capacity as founder-director of the Arts & Healing Resilience Center.