Award-winning psychiatrist Steven Moffic, MD, urges psychiatry to elevate social, spiritual, and moral care, tackling burnout, tech, and ecological ethics.
H. Steven Moffic, MD
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Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specializes in the social, cultural, ethical, spiritual, and religious aspects of psychiatry, and since 2012 is in retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekdays column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Among his diverse and rare combination of major awards for psychiatrists, he was selected to receive the international Oskar Pfister Award for his contributions to religion, spirituality, and psychiatry at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual meeting in May 2026. Previously, he was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry; the 2016 Administrative Psychiatrist Award from the American Psychiatric Association; in 2002, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA; at the turn of the new millennium, an APA Art Association award at the annual meeting for his displayed collage “Any Point of View (of Rusti) is Pure Delight”; and in 1991 the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. He also presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He has been an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physical burnout, and xenophobia, among other social justice causes, serving on many related local and national community and professional Boards. He has edited the requested 5-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, The Eastern Religions and Spirituality, and in 2026, the Second Edition of Islamophobia and Psychiatry. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.
Articles by H. Steven Moffic, MD
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Explore how “luck” shapes mental health, trauma recovery, and doctor-patient fit—while revealing why personal choices still drive outcomes like A1C.
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How cultural humility in psychiatry reframes global conflict, urging respect, diversity, and shared values amid escalating tensions.
A psychiatrist revisits Lifton’s Nazi Doctors to explore ‘doubling,’ moral injury, and what aging and war teach about ethics and burnout.
Explore how Mardi Gras, Ramadan, and Chinese New Year converge to spark reflection, emotional change, and a call for unity through everyday kindness.
How preventive psychiatry reframes war debates, weighing acute risk, nuclear escalation, and why "watch and wait" can worsen global outcomes.
Light triumphing over darkness in war: a reflection of psychiatry triumphing over mental health disorders.
A psychiatrist links today’s civil rights tensions to urgent psychiatric rights—funding, burnout relief, social care, and free speech for clinicians and patients.
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