"While circumstances matter, lasting change often begins with understanding how internal responses shape health and behavior."
About Dr. Glassman
With more than 30 years of experience in general internal medicine in Rockland County, New York, Dr. Charles F. Glassman developed a clinical interest in patterns that standard diagnoses often fail to explain. Across decades of patient care, he observed that many people struggle not because of weakness or pathology alone, but because chronic stress subtly shapes physiology, perception, and behavior over time. These persistent stress responses often appear alongside anxiety, interpersonal conflict, perfectionism, control patterns, and a wide range of physical symptoms—frequently without being recognized as a unifying influence.
Over time, Dr. Glassman came to understand these recurring patterns as the result of a chronically activated fight-or-flight response. While this physiological state is designed to protect us during moments of real danger, it can remain engaged long after a threat has passed, quietly reshaping perception, behavior, and physical health. In his clinical work, and later in his writing, he examines how this prolonged stress response drives anxiety, conflict, perfectionism, control, and even chronic physical symptoms, often without conscious awareness. Learning how this system operates—and how it can be interrupted—became the conceptual foundation of Fear Is a Liar.
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A graduate of New York Medical College, Dr. Glassman was among the earliest physicians in the United States to establish a concierge internal medicine practice, beginning in 2002. That model enabled longer visits, greater continuity, and a more comprehensive view of patients’ lives over time. Within those deeper clinical relationships, patterns became clearer: how medical symptoms, life pressures, and habitual responses intersect and reinforce one another. The experience sharpened his understanding of health as something shaped not only by diagnosis and treatment, but by how individuals interpret, manage, and live within their circumstances.
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