A (Taylor) Swift Model Tailored for Relationships

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

For our last column on Friday, I ended by wondering, somewhat fancifully, whether Taylor Swift would become a Kennedy Center Honoree for the arts someday. That came in the context of discussing this year’s awardees, as well as the popular singer/songwriter Laura Nero and her concerns for children back in the 1960s.

Although I have had a longstanding particular love of jazz, I have always had some interest in popular music: Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, even Elvis, but less so as I have aged, so I have not been much exposed to or know much about Taylor Swift and her rise to popularity. Whatever connection I had was through her football star boyfriend, Travis Kelce.

Over the last few years, I have also participated in some podcasts. In particular, I have been interviewed for an hour or so every 2 months by Jon Atack for “Jon Atack, Family and Friends.” This podcast generally focuses on threats to freedom of thought. I have found it conducive to exploring how psychiatry tries to increase freedom of thought for our patients, as well as finding a comfortable psychological space to probe and convey more personal feelings. We go into these interviews without any choice of topic or preparation.

These 2 areas, Taylor Swift and my own podcast participation, came together after viewing some of the 2 hours of the “New Heights” Podcast coled by the Kelce brothers that included Taylor Swift. I reacted like Will Rahn, who wrote the article “Marry a Woman Smarter Than You” for the Free Press.¹ First of all, it was easy to personally agree with the title of his piece. Sure, they could be posing, but as he said about the relationship: “Gosh, I thought. I think I like these people.” Maybe very cautiously, I considered if I could say something about where psychiatry fits in here and just in case you are wondering, no, I have not run across anything that suggests she has been in psychiatric treatment. Maybe the connection is what kinds of connection are valuable for mental well-being.

This column is in then in no way a public psychiatric analysis of Taylor Swift, but rather a consideration of her social psychiatric influences in society. Please forgive any mistakes or misinterpretations. As I learn more, I welcome corrections.

Successful Relationships

One-on-one relationships are the essence of society and psychiatry. This starts with the parent and child, onto friendships, school, work settings, and in psychiatry, the therapeutic alliance.

Taylor Swift has written and sung many songs about her relationships. That in itself is not unusual, but other public commentary about the relationships by her have apparently been atypically rare until now, until this podcast. She and Travis are holding hands and cuddling at times. She claims not to look at social media, and while not touring, enjoys sewing and cooking. Carrying on successful intimate relationships for famous individuals is quite difficult due to the intrusion of the public.

Another kind of much larger relationship is all her close followers, sometimes called “Swifties.”Some may say that looks cultish, but there does not seem to be any intent on her part to cultishly control their thinking. It seems like she is more of a working role model, and the connections become a community counter to our loneliness epidemic, now being called the “century of solitude.” It is the kind of healthy belonging highlighted in Maslow’s hierarchy of psychological needs.

The Business Control of Psychiatry

Over the last few decades, for-profit managed care has taken business control of much of medicine, including, and especially, psychiatry in the United States.² The adverse repercussions seem to be more concern with profits than quality of care.

Entertainment is no stranger to business control. For a long time, Taylor Swift did not have control of her best-selling master recordings. After a long legal struggle, she succeeded in buying them back and regaining control. If only we could do that more in psychiatry.

Other Psychiatric Implications

Psychiatry has become more interested in lifestyle, primarily for our patients, but also for ourselves. Entertainment preferences, including music and sports, fall under that rubric. Teasing out the value of participation in terms of degree and meaning is not easy.

Words have traditionally been crucial in psychiatry. How to say the right things at the right time has always been a challenge in the interpretations of dynamic psychotherapy.

Much has been said about how Taylor Swift has paid special attention to word choice and meaning in her song lyrics, often conveying the depth of meaning that is part and parcel of psychiatric understanding of patient communications. She has actually trademarked some of her popular phrases like this simple one: “This sick beat,” from her “1989” album.

Her own apparent introspection, self-criticism, and processing seem to share similarities with how we in psychiatry watch for the influence of our own personal issues, particularly in countertransference concerns. Here is a related iconic line of hers that pops up now and then in discussions about her wording choices:

“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”

By serendipity yesterday, on our favorite TV show, CBS Sunday Morning, there was another extremely popular music star, but one we had not heard of, named Laufey. She seems to have successfully bridged the connections between older jazz, classical, and pop music.

The influence of Taylor Swift and other online music influencers like Laufey is significant, even for the political preferences of the public. We also received our first requested nomination for next year’s award by a colleague and friend. It is for the country star, George Strait. It also reminds me that country songs lend themselves easily to psychiatric interest with their common content about the challenges of human relationships. It behooves psychiatry, including myself, to understand their implications for mental well-being and social connection.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Rahn W. Marry a woman smarter than you. Free Press. August 14, 2025. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.thefp.com/p/the-straight-male-case-for-taylor-swift-music-culture

2. Moffic HS. The Ethical Way: Challenges & Solutions for Managed Behavioral Healthcare. Jossey-Bass; 1997.