There’s a poem hanging in Dr. Max Malikow’s study, written by Betty Sue Flowers — “Pain is a mechanism for growth that carves out the heart to make room for compassion.”

It fits the setting.

His office where he performs therapy and counseling overlooks a quiet neighborhood in the Northside of Syracuse. About 15 people come here every week to talk out their problems with Malikow. Some patients, he said, come from 2 1/2 hours away to see him for their appointments.

Malikow, a Syracuse native, teaches at Syracuse University twice a week. His two classes, “The Human Predicament” and “Understanding Suicide” are taught based on his books and professional experience. The professor has spent 25,000 hours over 30 years practicing therapy, which amounts to three years of his life spent helping patients.

“We learn a lot looking backwards,” said Malikow, referencing one of his favorite philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, “and looking backwards, I think I was always curious about why people behave the way they did.”

His curiosity led him on a journey when he quit being a high school teacher to go to a seminary. There, he found his faith in Christianity and became an associate pastor upon graduation.

Malikow’s sermons were always centered on making actual change in his listeners’ lives. He preached from an index card because he believed that if he read from the Bible, then the people at the sermon may as well just read the holy text themselves. His classes are taught the same way — they’re held discussion style, no lectures.

“I do take every effort to think, ‘How can I make this helpful to people?’” he said.

Eventually, Malikow said he realized the best part of his pastoral work was the counseling. That’s why he left the church to get his doctorate at Boston University. It was there that he met one of the biggest influences of his life, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

Malikow said he was floored by Wiesel’s kindness as a professor. He learned all of his students’ names, and would stop lecturing as soon as a student raised his hand. Malikow asked Wiesel once if his kindness came from his time at Auschwitz.

Malikow recollected Wiesel saying, “Max, I have seen corpses piled as high as the ceiling in this room. And I vowed that if I were to survive and get out of that place, that I would always treat everyone with respect.”

It was those ideals Malikow held dear when he established therapy practices twice in his life — once in Boston, and once again in Syracuse when he moved back in 1996.

Malikow was again moved deeply by someone he met years later when he returned to upstate New York. He describes a patient of his — who he gives the initials SC when referring to her — as someone “who has looked into the depths of life and retained her grace.” She suffered greatly, he said, but her strength led her to live on a good life.

“Every book I’ve written I dedicate to her,” said Malikow. “She had a profound effect on my life, not because of her brilliance, but because of her kindness.”

Malikow takes after his influences. His classes are taught in a small room, with the professor sitting at a round table alongside his students. Malikow serves more as a friend and a guide to his students rather than a lecturer.

“He’s not like any other professor I had because he’s more personable,” said Crystal Hendriks, a freshman psychology major. “I’ve never had a professor be able to listen so well when you have a comment and make you feel confident about the class and how you’re doing.”

His classes, which are always full, take place at 8 and 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday.

“I know I can schedule him for a class at 8 in the morning, and students will show up,” said Hanna Richardson, associate deputy director of the Renée Crown Honors Program. “Students love his course.”

In one of his classes, Malikow sat relaxed at the head of the table, while his students sat at attention, seeming to hang onto every word. He began introducing psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s concept of tragic optimism. Frankl was 16 years old when he sent an essay to Sigmund Freud, who published it three years later in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Unavoidable tragedies, Frankl said, must be used to give meaning to life.

The professor broke down for his students how Frankl suggested people deal with pain, guilt and death.

“Heavy stuff for 16,” Malikow said to his class. “When I was 16, I was thinking, when’s the next Yankees game?”

His students laughed, and then dove back into the theory.