How Did Sophie Become Dr Solution?

When she took a break from Medical School in Paris to do Theater.

She always felt she was a born actress, since making her family laugh had been helpful and rewarding during her childhood. However, as a medical student, when her hospital clerkship rotations started, she was turned off by the conventional medical approach to patients. She found it to be mechanical, arrogant, and disengaged.


At that time, she considered dropping med school completely in favor of an acting career. So, to the dismay of her family, she registered in a dramatic art school and took acting classes. That’s where she met a friend who told her about the “Palo Alto School”. The “Palo Alto School” was composed of a group of independent researchers and authors who studied human communication and the principles of problem formation and resolution in human affairs.


That was back in 1981 and Sophie read everything she could from those researchers and fell in love with the brief therapy approach.


So, Sophie realized that for her, it was much more meaningful to act in the real life of people than to play on a stage. Like Luigi Pirandello’s play “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, the compelling comedy/drama of Life is ultimately mysterious and precious. Psychiatry! This is what she needed to do. This would give her the chance to help people in their lives.


Today, as a Board Certified Psychiatrist in both the U.S. and in Europe, with a private practice as Adult and Child Psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, she uses the Solution Focused Brief Therapy Approach for clients with excellent results. Dr. Duriez is an international presenter and author of several specialized articles published in English and French. From time to time, she even writes movie reviews for the Southern California Psychiatry Newsletter.