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Inside the Mind of Dr. Fawver

The man behind the Matters

By Jim Mount

Fort Wayne Reader

2008-06-23

Dr. Jay Fawver’s call-in television program Matters of the Mind hasn't been on the air for more than five minutes and already the lights on the phone banks are flashing bright green. Some lines lit up minutes before the show even started. There's a call about someone suffering from fibromyalga. Another caller asks about a combination of drugs to treat bipolar disorder that isn’t working effectively. It's another Monday evening and Dr. Fawver is in.

For a little over 10 years, psychiatrist Dr. Jay Fawver has been on the air at PBS39. He started as a regular guest on the station's live medical call-in show Healthline, eventually he got his own program, Matters Of The Mind. The program, broadcast live, features Fawver fielding questions regarding mental health issues, and the show has become a viewer favorite. So who exactly is Dr. Jay Fawver and how did a show about mental health, a subject that most people don't want to talk about, become such a hit?

Fawver hails from Greenfield, Indiana, a small town just east of Indianapolis. A proud graduate of Greenfield Central High School, Fawver played football as a defensive end. In 1973, the Greenfield-Central High Cougars captured the Indiana State Championship. “It was the very first state championship,” Dr. Fawver recalls. “In those days, we only had three divisions and we played and won before the other two.”

After high school, Dr. Fawver enrolled at Purdue University where he graduated from the School of Pharmacy in 1979. A psychiatrist by profession, Dr. Fawver had early aspirations for his profession. “What really drew me to the mental health field was the Bob Newhart Show,” Fawver says. “Newhart's character on that show was a psychiatrist and when I was 12, I told my mother I wanted to be a psychologist because of this show. In high school, my direction changed slightly. A pharmacist (at a health fair) told me that if I was interested in math, chemistry and biology, I may want to consider a career in Pharmacy. After high school, I enrolled at Purdue University in the School of Pharmacy. It was a really weird and roundabout way of becoming a psychiatrist.”

While studying Pharmacy, Fawver’s interest in psychiatry continued. “While in school, my favorite topics were anatomy and physiology and I realized as I continued school that psychiatry was what most intrigued me.”

Since then, Dr. Fawver has amassed an impressive resume in the field of psychiatry. He is president of the Fawver Wellness Clinic in Fort Wayne, president of Psychiatric Innovations PC and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine. His stint on television began with several guest appearances on Healthline. Then PBS39 asked him if he wanted to host my own program. “In 1997, I hosted a 13 week pilot program called Modern Parenting,” says Fawver. “Toward the end of its run, I suggested a program focusing more on mental health issues and we subsequently produced 38 programs focusing on those topics. We soon piloted the call-in programs. The reason I wanted to do the call-in programs was because the guests had a tendency to freeze on camera. In 1998, the format of the live call-in was established and it was done with very minimal call screening with the intention of taking 8 to 10 calls in a thirty minute program.”

Not long ago, the public perception of mental illness epitomized the image of a hysterical maniac struggling in a straight-jacket. These mischaracterizations of mental illness have been imbedded in the public consciousness for centuries but advances in science and medicine, along with more open dialogue have shed more light on mental illness. “There has been an enormous change of perception toward mental illness in the past twenty years,” Dr. Fawver confirms. “Matters of the Mind attempts to emphasize the biological aspects of mental illness and on the program I frequently refer to the model of the brain.”

That model, a multi-colored, plastic brain, can be pulled apart to identify various parts of the brain as Dr. Fawver discusses topics during the show. “I do this to emphasize that mood and anxiety disorders may be medical conditions and not just attitude problems,” Dr. Fawver explains. “The brain is the final unexplored frontier of the human body. We understand more of the functioning of the brain in the last five years than in all of history.”

This growing understanding of the brain excites Dr. Fawver about the future of psychiatry. The growing willingness of people to talk openly about mental illness is another positive. And it all lends itself to a growing audience for the program. “As the years have progressed with Matters of the Mind our phone calls and interest in the program have actually increased. This usually isn't the case with programs like these,” Dr. Fawver explains. “The interest is there for the first couple of years and then begins to fade. To keep the interest going you would have to change the format. We haven't changed our format.”

“What I do on the program is what I do in the office on a day to day basis; I answer questions. I usually don't have to think too hard because I've usually heard the question before in my office. In my 20 years as a psychiatrist, I've heard most of these questions at one time or another ,so a given question is not usually new to me.”

But one persistent question regarding Matters of the Mind seems to trump all others: What exactly is in the cup he sips from so frequently during the course of the show? “In the early years it was Diet Mountain Dew,” he smiles. “But more recently Rock Star 0-carb energy drink. I drink this after a full day at the office. I have to have it because after a full day at the office it keeps me awake for the show.”

Awake and ready for more questions.

It's a few minutes before 8:00 in the PBS39 control room. The phone screener has stopped taking calls and the program clock is winding down. On the program monitor, the congenial host has answered the final caller. The credits roll, the program fades to black and still the phone lines blink until one by one they go out, waiting until the next Monday when they will light up again.

Matters of the Mind, can be seen every Monday evening at 7:30 p.m. on WFWA PBS39.