April 15, 2004 to April 20, 2004; January 28, 2008 to March 27, 2008; February 6, 2009; August 17, 2009 to August 20, 2009; June 3, 2011 to June 6, 2011; August 17, 2017 to August 28, 2017 [guest appearances]

James Warwick was a psychiatrist who had once mentored Los Angeles doctor Taylor Hayes. James asked Taylor to treat him because his lady love, Sophia, was dying, plus James was haunted by the death of his father, Damon Warwick. When Taylor did some investigating and discovered that Damon was alive, James confessed that he had lied because Damon was abusive. James went on about Sophia and his sainted mother, but when Taylor took James home to Scotland to confront Damon, James had to face that Damon treated him badly because he blamed James for his wife dying in childbirth; James had created fantasies of his mother and Sophia as coping mechanisms. James was grateful for Taylor's aid and comforted her as she dealt with her husband, Ridge Forrester, always being in the orbit of his former love Brooke Logan.

James was hopeful about starting a relationship with Taylor but began to date Brooke. While at the Forresters' cabin in Big Bear, James consoled Taylor, who was upset that Ridge had gone on an international business trip with Brooke; suddenly there was a devastating earthquake that destroyed the cabin and left James and Taylor defenseless against the cold. Fearing they were about to freeze to death, James admitted he didn't want to die a virgin, and he and Taylor made love, keeping quiet about it after they were rescued.

James was devastated when Taylor died in a plane crash on her way to Egypt for a conference. James nearly married Brooke, but Ridge prevented their wedding and proposed to Brooke himself. Though Taylor's plane had no survivors, James received Taylor's lecture notes in the mail bearing a postmark from Morocco. After Brooke and Ridge came home from Morocco raving about having met Prince Omar and his mysterious lady, Laila, James became convinced that Laila was Taylor and went to Omar's palace posing as biographer Brewster MacKenzie to get information. James found Taylor, who had been nursed back to health after a bout of amnesia, but couldn't convince Taylor to come home because Taylor had witnessed Ridge and Brooke on their honeymoon and didn't want to further disrupt Ridge's life. After Taylor's father, Jack Hamilton, had a near-fatal heart attack, James called Taylor and persuaded her to return to Los Angeles to aid her dad.

James became entangled in the web of the elusive Sheila Carter when her husband, Eric Forrester, came to James to deal with Sheila's increasingly antisocial behavior. After Sheila's therapist, Jay Garvin, fell to his death from a balcony minutes after talking to Sheila, James grew to believe Sheila was dangerous, especially after Eric's ex-wife, Stephanie Forrester, hinted that something dastardly had happened between Sheila and the tight-lipped Lauren Fenmore, who knew Sheila from Genoa City, Wisconsin. When Eric forced Sheila into therapy as a condition of continuing their marriage, James tried his best to find a chink in Sheila's armor, only escaping Sheila killing him with a fire poker because of having to take a phone call.

Fed up with Sheila's evasiveness, James called Lauren himself and invited her to Los Angeles to talk about Sheila. James was shocked when a water-logged Lauren came to him reporting that Sheila had tried to drown her in a hot tub to silence her. James learned that not only had Sheila switched Lauren's baby in the hospital, but Sheila had tried to kill both Lauren and her own mother, Molly Carter, at a farmhouse where a fire broke out; after an electrician's body was found and everyone thought Sheila died, Sheila had come to L.A. to start a new life. James left to reveal Sheila's criminal past to Eric, but Sheila and her cohort, Mike Guthrie, kidnapped James and held him prisoner in Sheila's house, which was once owned by Harry Houdini and still boasted an array of restraints which James now found himself in.

James turned the tables on Sheila, wearing her down with feigned romantic interest to the point he made love to her to win her trust. But when James banged on a pipe to get the visiting Stephanie's attention, James had to fight Sheila, who came at him with a knife; James trapped Sheila in Houdini's devices, but she was gone by the time James came back with the police. Soon after, James, along with Lauren, Eric, Stephanie, Ridge, and Brooke, received invitations from Sheila, who gathered them at the Forrester mansion for a "goodbye party" which saw her holding them at gunpoint. After James and Lauren, in particular, talked Sheila down, James watched helplessly as Sheila tried to commit suicide in front of him by downing poison.

After Sheila survived and was incarcerated in a prison mental hospital, James had to assess Sheila, who was up for parole. James doubted Sheila's strangely normal behavior and recommended against her freedom, but when she remained docile after being beaten by fellow inmates, the parole board released Sheila on the condition that James continue to treat her. Later, Stephanie was committed when she seemed to be going crazy; it was James who learned that Stephanie was slowly being poisoned by mercury pills. Under the privacy of therapy, James got Sheila to admit that she had switched Stephanie's calcium supplements with mercury trying to keep Stephanie from taking custody of Brooke's children; James was compassionate when Sheila went one step further and described constant childhood abuse at the hands of her father, which repeatedly drove her to extreme methods of self-preservation.

James pursued the now-single Taylor, but when Taylor remained hung up on Ridge, James dated Lauren, who had moved to Los Angeles. But James made a real connection with Maggie Forrester, who hated Sheila for trying to frame her in the case of Stephanie's poisoning. James further alienated Maggie by taking Sheila's side after an argument with Maggie left Sheila impaled by a fire poker, but James smoothed things over and proposed to Maggie. As his wedding approached, James was inconsolable when Maggie disappeared and left him a message that she was leaving him; James drank heavily and woke up in Sheila's bed, believing Sheila when she said nothing happened. Once Maggie returned, James was about to exchange vows with her when Sheila burst in, claiming she was pregnant with James' baby. James and Maggie married anyway, but James, who had no memory of his night with Sheila, conceded he might have made love to her.

James and Maggie arranged to adopt Sheila's baby, whom Sheila named Mary after James' mother. James hired teenager Amber Moore to sit with Mary, not knowing that Sheila had planted Amber in James' house. When James found out Amber was connected to Sheila, he promised Amber a convertible if she spied on Sheila for him. Before the adoption was finalized, Sheila changed her mind and took Mary back, so James worked with Maggie, Amber, and his friend Connor Davis to prove Sheila an unfit mother. James played on Sheila's affections, moving in with Sheila and getting an annulment from Maggie to marry Sheila and legitimize the ruse. The day of James and Sheila's wedding, Mike figured out James' plan and showed Sheila the camera James had hidden in the nursery, and James was unable to talk his new bride from jumping off a hotel roof.

Disgusted with himself for deceiving the vulnerable Sheila, James came to realize he had real feelings for her and determined to make a home with Sheila and Mary. But Sheila seemingly left, and James rejected Maggie's attempts to get back into his life. James soon learned that Maggie, Mike, and Mike's brother, Martin Guthrie, had kidnapped Sheila and held her at the house made famous in the movie Psycho to give Maggie another chance with James. James rescued Sheila and stood by her side when Maggie and Lauren tried to gaslight Sheila into going crazy again.

James and Sheila settled into marriage, but James lost his psychiatric license for having a sexual relationship with a patient. A rift developed between James and Sheila when Sheila tried to threaten a doctor on the medical board into giving James his license back. James turned to Stephanie for comfort and they shared a brief kiss, which Sheila saw; when James found out that Sheila had threatened to kill Stephanie's grandson, Thomas Forrester, and tried to drown Stephanie in the Forrester pool, James wore a wire to trap Sheila and sent her back to jail. But James soon discovered that Sheila had switched identities with Sybil Weller, an inmate about to be paroled; James deduced Sheila would go after Stephanie, who was caring for Mary, and got Sheila on the phone, heartsick to hear that Sheila was taking off with Mary. James found Stephanie, who had been shot, and Amber, who had been knocked unconscious, left in Sheila's wake.

James was conflicted after he received a letter from Sheila asking him to stop looking for her because Mary would have a very unstable life from all the moving around Sheila would have to do if he didn't. James stepped in when Taylor started to work with Pierce Peterson, a psychiatrist who specialized in a new method of hypnosis; Taylor began to behave out of character, and James helped to discover that Pierce's assistant, Bailey, had given Taylor hypnotic suggestions to fall for the lovesick Pierce.

James attended the pregnant Amber's wedding to Brooke's son, Rick Forrester, then was said to have left Los Angeles in search of Sheila and Mary. In 2002, after Sheila brought a grown-up Mary to town to steal Rick from Amber, Mary, who had been raised as Erica Lovejoy, broke free of Sheila and declared she was going to James, feeling she had been robbed of her father.

James was hired by shipping magnate Massimo Marone in 2004 to help a stressed-out Brooke decide between Ridge and Massimo's son, Nick Marone. In 2006, Taylor revealed her long-ago encounter with James, which ruined her marriage to Ridge. After Taylor had a meltdown in 2008 over the discovery that an egg implanted for in vitro fertilization had been donated by Brooke -- making Taylor's baby, Jack Marone, Brooke's biological child -- James counseled Taylor and her husband Nick, then was forced to testify against Taylor when Nick filed for custody because Taylor couldn't bond with their son.

The following year, James visited to steer Taylor's daughter, Steffy Forrester, away from a now-vengeful Rick; James also counseled Steffy's brother, Thomas Forrester, off-screen after Thomas set Rick's house on fire and blew up his car. Later that year, at Ridge's behest, James tried to broker peace between longtime rivals Brooke and Taylor, taking them to the Big Bear cabin for massage and therapy with foam bats, but the women brawled in a mud bath and left James covered in it. In 2011, James tried to help Brooke, who thought she had slept with her stepson Thomas while under the influence of hallucinogenic berries.

James returned in 2017 at the behest of Eric, who wanted James to privately examine the supposedly rehabilitated Sheila after she sustained a concussion during a catfight with Eric's new wife, Quinn Fuller. James was horrified to learn that Sheila had found out from their daughter Mary about an addiction he'd had to painkillers, during which he'd illegally written himself prescriptions; James was forced to downplay Sheila's recovery to Eric, whom Sheila wanted back, in order to keep Sheila from exposing his crime. James even lied to Brooke, who wanted the recuperating Sheila out of Eric's house. James then disappeared, his addiction secret apparently intact.