About Our Founder

Barry M. Maletzky, M.D

Barry Maletzky, M.D. Established the clinic in 1975 and is now retired. Dr. Maletzky graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in psychophysiology and from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Stony Brook Campus, within an M.D. He completed a residency in psychiatry in Portland, Oregon in 1973. Dr. Maletzky began specializing in several fields in psychiatry, including the treatment of severe depression and the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders. In 1975, he founded the Sexual Abuse Clinic to treat sexual offenders and their victims. Since that time, the clinic has become one of the largest and most persistent clinics in the world. 

Dr. Maletzky has conducted clinical research projects since his residency days. He is the author of over 65 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals, ten chapters in edited textbooks, and six original textbooks in psychiatry in various subspecialties. He served as editor of a medical journal from 1994 to 2004. Dr. Maletzky is the recipient of numerous military and civilian awards, including the Dean's Award from OHSU. He partially retired in 2007 in order to devote more time to his teaching, research, volunteer and consulting activities, including membership on the boards of non-profit organizations working with those just released from prison, those who subsist below the poverty line, and those within the LGBTQ+ community. He has also served two terms on the Executive Council of the Mazamas, a Portland-based mountain-climbing organization. 

Dr. Maletzky's recent scientific contributions to research to the research literature is the publication by Karnac Books of London, entitled Sexual Abuse and the Sexual Offender: Common Man or Monster? In this work, intended for the general public, Dr. Maletzky outlines the most recent understanding about the nature of sexual offending, it assessment and treatment, and, of utmost value, its potential prevention.  Most recently, he has published, through Liberty Book in New York, Sexual Offenders and the Criminal Justice System, exploring means by which changes in how our systems of jurisprudence could work more efficiently in preventing sexual abuse while saving billions of dollars and encouraging the rehabilitation of sexual offenders.

Two new books written by Dr. Maletzky are devoted to his obsession with the outdoors and mountain environments; one The Flower Finder: Where and When to Find Wildflowers in the Columbia Gorge, is a text noting the optimum locations and months in which predominant wildflowers flourish on the most popular trails in the Columbia Gorge Natural Scenic Area near Portland, published by Inkwater Press.  A second endeavor includes Hidden Gems of the North Cascades: Brief Essays on Climbs, Scrambles and Traverses in our most Overlooked Alpine and National Park to be published by Village Books.  His hobbies include hiking, mountain climbing and wildflower study.  He is also about to publish a text outlining the evolutionary bond linking the multiple facets of obsessive compulsive behavior and the multiple members within thee OCD Spectrum of disorders.