Dr.
Flowers began her professional psychiatry career by serving as a
community psychiatrist during her 1968 internship in San Francisco.
For the next nine years, she served as a staff psychiatrist and
senior administrator in the African-American community of East Palo
Alto, California and at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San
Francisco.
In 1977, Dr. Flowers opened a private psychiatry
practice in San Francisco that would thrive for the next 25 years.
Offering psychotherapy and prescribing medications when necessary,
she served adult individuals, couples, and groups. In that time, she
also chaired and participated in a number of local and national
committees, including becoming a Distinguished Fellow of the
American Psychiatric Association in 1987, and serving as president
of the 1,200-member Northern California Psychiatric Society (NCPS)
from 1998 to 1999. She was a reviewer for "Mental
Health: A Report of the Surgeon General" in 1999 and the
supplemental report, "Mental
Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity" in 2001. The NCPS
honored Dr. Flowers with the Presidents’ Distinguished Service Award
in 2002.
Dr.
Flowers even brought her analysis skills to a television audience in
1985 with “Dr. Flowers on Call,” a national call-in show for BET
(Black Entertainment Television). The format was 10 minutes of a
taped initial psychiatric interview with a volunteer “patient”
followed by Dr. Flowers leading 20 minutes of discussion about the
patient's real-life situation with callers. In the 65 episodes that
aired, Dr. Flowers addressed issues such as depression, alcoholism,
domestic violence, AIDS, refugees, interracial relationships,
anxiety, and more.
Though she retired from her psychiatric treatment
practice in 2002, Dr. Flowers still consults and teaches in the area
of psychotherapy, which—much like her consultations—requires an
understanding of psychodynamics in the context of a community. In
fact, she used her experience in community psychiatry and this area
to develop the original emotional education curriculum presented in
her consultation work.
Dr.
Flowers began her professional psychiatry career by serving as a
community psychiatrist during her 1968 internship in San Francisco.
For the next nine years, she served as a staff psychiatrist and
senior administrator in the African-American community of East Palo
Alto, California and at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San
Francisco.
Dr.
Flowers even brought her analysis skills to a television audience in
1985 with “Dr. Flowers on Call,” a national call-in show for BET
(Black Entertainment Television). The format was 10 minutes of a
taped initial psychiatric interview with a volunteer “patient”
followed by Dr. Flowers leading 20 minutes of discussion about the
patient's real-life situation with callers. In the 65 episodes that
aired, Dr. Flowers addressed issues such as depression, alcoholism,
domestic violence, AIDS, refugees, interracial relationships,
anxiety, and more.