Sabshin entered Tulane University School of Medical in New Orleans, completed the program in three and one-half years, and was, academically, among the first in his class.
He trained under Roy R. Grinker Sr., M.D., an established leader in psychiatry who sought an integrated understanding of complex behaviors.
He remained at Michael Reese Hospital Medical Center until 1961 when he became the associate director of the Institute for Psychosomatic & Psychiatric Research and Training.
His interests led to his belief that ideologies had to be replaced with rational, evidence-based approaches to the prevention and treatment of mental illness.
In 1961, Sabshin left the Institute for Psychosomatic & Psychiatric Research and Training to become chair of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
From 1967 to 1968, he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
The American Psychiatric Association developed a new nosology based on research in psychiatry, which led to the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
His first publication in 1954 as a co-author was on the subject of the glucose tolerance test in schizophrenia in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.