Dr. Summers is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Senior Residency Advisor at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He served as Co-Director of Residency Training at Penn from 1998 to 2017. He is currently in private practice.

Dr. Summers has served as Treasurer of APA from 2020 to the present.  He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He served as Trustee-at-Large on the Board of Trustees of APA from 2016-2020. He was Chair of the APA Committee on Psychiatrist Wellbeing and Burnout from 2018-2020, and previously served as Chair of the APA Council on Medical Education and Lifelong Learning from 2013-2016. He chaired the APA Board of Trustees Ad Hoc Workgroup on Education and Training in 2014 and the APA Board of Trustees Ad Hoc Workgroup on Psychiatrist Wellbeing and Burnout in 2017. He was Chair of the APA Positive Psychiatry Caucus from 2017-2019. He received a Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association in 2018.

Dr. Summers is a nationally recognized educator, author and clinician. He served the on ACGME Psychiatry Residency Review Committee from 2014-2020 and is a Past President of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training (AADPRT). He is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists.

Dr. Summers' book, Psychodynamic Therapy: A Guide to Evidence Based Practice, co-authored with Jacques Barber, is currently used in over forty training programs. Summers and Barber's second book, Practicing Psychodynamic Therapy: A Casebookwas published in 2014. Positive Psychiatry: A Casebook, edited with Dilip V. Jeste, M.D., was published in 2018, and most recently, Combating Burnout: A Guide for Psychiatrists, co-edited with Sheila LoboPrabhu, M.D., and M. Steve Moffic, M.D., was published in 2019. Dr. Summers has written many articles on psychodynamic therapy training, therapeutic alliance, psychodynamic formulation, positive psychology and psychiatry residency training.

Dr. Summers was awarded the Earl Bond Outstanding Teacher Award of the Department of Psychiatry at Penn in 2000, the Robert Dunning Dripps Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education by the Penn School of Medicine and the Psychiatric Educator of the Year by the Philadelphia Psychiatric Society in 2007. He was Teacher of the Year at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia in 2008, and Outpatient Teacher of the Year Award in 2002, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2017 in the Penn Department of Psychiatry. He was awarded the American Psychoanalytic Association Edith Sabshin National Teaching Award in 2014 and the University of Pennsylvania Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2014.

Dr. Summers received a B.A. from Harvard College in 1979, graduating magna cum laude in sociology, and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Following psychiatry residency at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Summers completed psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, on whose faculty he currently serves.

Follow Dr. Summers on Twitter @summersrpa.