Contributor

Loren A. Olson, M.D.

Psychiatrist

Loren A. Olson, M.D., is a gay psychiatrist who came out at age 40,
after 18 years of marriage. He is the author of "Finally Out:
Letting Go of Living Straight
" (inGroup Press, March 2011).

Library Journal said about Finally Out: “Part memoir, part psychology book for the lay reader, this is informative and compassionate … Olson succeeds in offering himself as a sort of role model and in providing vital information to older gay men. Inspirational.”

Dr. Olson is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and
Neurology. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American
Psychiatric Association and a recipient of the "Exemplary Psychiatrist Award" from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. He has received awards from the American Psychiatric Association for his writing.

He served as a medical executive for two of the largest hospitals in Iowa, working to improve the quality of care in their psychiatric programs. He has also taught psychiatry to psychiatric residents, medical students, physician assistant students and a variety of other allied health professionals. Prior to his psychiatric training, he served as a Flight Surgeon in the United States Navy

Dr. Olson has conducted independent research on mature gay men, and he presented the initial results of this research at the World Congress in Psychiatry in Prague in September 2008 and throughout the United States.

A frequent resource for local print, radio and television journalists on topics related to mental health, Dr. Olson was recently featured nationally on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America. He writes for his own blog, MagneticFire. com, which has a strong following among mature gay men, and he is a regular featured blogger for HuffingtonPost.com and PsychologyToday.com.

A father and grandfather, Dr. Olson is legally married to Doug
Mortimer, his partner of 24 years. They live on a farm in
Iowa where they produce grass-fed beef from their herd of Belted Galloway cattle.