Dr. Michael R. Liebowitz is a Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 and founder of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic, the first of its kind, at the New York State Psychiatric Institute

New York State Psychiatric Institute

The New York State Psychiatric Institute, established in 1895 and located on Riverside Drive at the foot of Washington Heights, the far upper west side of Manhattan in New York City, was one of the first institutions in the United States to integrate teaching, research and therapeutic approaches to...

. In 1985, he researched and highlighted an underrecognized status of Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder

Social anxiety disorder , also known as social phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by intense fear in social situations causing considerable distress and impaired ability to function in at least some parts of daily life...

 (SAD). This led to subsequent cognitive research

Research

Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

 and treatment

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...

s for anxiety disorder

Anxiety disorder

Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal and pathological fear and anxiety. Conditions now considered anxiety disorders only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the end of the 19th century. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes explains that anxiety disorders are...

s. He created the Liebowitz social anxiety scale

Liebowitz social anxiety scale

The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale is a questionnaire by psychologist and researcher, Michael Liebowitz, whose objective is to assess the range of social interaction and performance situations which patients with social anxiety disorder may fear. It is commonly used to study outcomes in clinical...

, now a widely used primary outcome measure in clinical research on SAD. He is also known for writing the popular 1983 book The Chemistry of Love, and for sparking the "chocolate theory of love," which attributes chocolate's

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

 supposed aphrodisiac

Aphrodisiac

An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire. The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality and love. Throughout history, many foods, drinks, and behaviors have had a reputation for making sex more attainable and/or pleasurable...

 effects to phenethylamine

Phenethylamine

Phenylethylamine or phenethylamine is a natural monoamine alkaloid, trace amine, and also the name of a class of chemicals with many members well known for psychoactive drug and stimulant effects. Studies suggest that phenylethylamine functions as a neuromodulator or neurotransmitter in the...

.