Maxwell Guttman was the owner of Mindful Living, a private mental health practice in New York City. Through his work as a licensed clinical social worker, therapist and disability rights advocate, Max fought for those without a voice in various New York City care systems. He received a “2020 Bearcats of the Last Decade 10 Under 10” award from the Binghamton University Alumni Association.

Guttman treated clients with anxiety and depression but specialised in issues related to psychosis or schizoaffective spectrum disorders. He frequently wrote about his lived experiences with schizophrenia.

“I knew my illness was so complex that I’d need a professional understanding of its treatment to gain any real momentum in recovery,” Guttman said. “After undergraduate school and the onset of my illness, I evaluated different graduate programmes that could serve as a career and a mechanism to guide and direct my self-care. After experiencing the helping hand of my social worker and therapist right after my ‘break’, I chose social work education because of its robust skill set and foundation of knowledge I needed to heal and help others.

“In a world of increasing tragedy, we should help people learn from our lived experiences. My experience brought humility, authenticity and candidness to my practice. People genuinely appreciated candidness when it came to their health and recovery. Humility provided space for mistakes and appraisal of progress. I thanked my lived experience for contributing to a more egalitarian therapeutic experience for my clients.”

He wrote for his blog, Mental Health Affairs, where he regularly shared articles about his lived experience with a mental health diagnosis. He died on 19th April 2025.