Dr. Strauss is a psychiatrist who has carried out a wide range of clinical research with persons who have severe brain and behavior disorders. These studies have focused on issues of diagnosis, course of disorder, and the processes of improvement, and have emphasized the struggle toward recovery. Dr. Strauss had the distinction, during his medical training in the 1950s, to have studied with Jean Piaget at the University of Geneva. In recent work, Dr. Strauss has focused on understanding in depth the subjective experiences of people with severe disorders including ways in which the arts, especially the theater and literature can teach us about these experiences. He believes that a more accurate understanding of the experiences of mental illness provides crucial data for understanding and treating the basic processes involved in disorder and recovery, and for constructing a human science of psychiatry.

Dr. Strauss worked at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 1964 to 1972 prior to joining Yale in 1977.