Enhancement Psychiatry

PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“We can literally invent humans 2.0.” - Aron D’Souza, Enhanced Games President

“This kind of reminds me of the Roman circus.” - Charles Yesalis, ScD, professor emeritus of health policy, Penn State

Parradee/Adobestock

You may be wondering about the title of today’s column, especially because there is no field of enhancement psychiatry. I made it up after coming upon this new Olympics in a recent article in Time.¹

In the Tuesday’s column, I discussed the new motto of the Olympics—“Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together”— and how that might apply to psychiatry. The Time article seems even more related to psychiatry. It discusses a strong and overt recommendation for performance-enhancing drugs, some of the same kind that are banned from the traditional Olympics, to go even faster, higher, and stronger with similar competitions, but perhaps not together. Not surprisingly, there is strong controversy among physicians familiar with such drugs; the concerns involve the lack of knowledge about some of the drugs, especially uncertainty of long-term complications.

The underlying rationale of these proposed Enhanced Games, which are scheduled to first take place about a year from now in Las Vegas, is: Why not increase human capability by any means necessary? Humans have done this over the course of history; consider the case of native substances that help endurance, anxiety, well-being, and imagination. That attempt continues today in the extensive underground use of psychedelics, especially with micro doses, that are otherwise still illegal.

In recent years, we have also seen the development of positive psychology and psychiatry. Some of the targets are resilience, wisdom, kindness, and the meaning of life.² Those positive goals seem especially relevant to leadership in our time of more authoritarian and oppressive leaders, in contrast to the emphasis of empathy, compassion, and kindness that was exhibited by the former prime minister of New Zealand.³

The re-emergence of lifestyle psychiatry is another related development. In fact, it was the theme of our recent American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting. The basic focus surrounds diet, exercise, and meditation for our patients and, by implication, ourselves, as I briefly presented in my meeting video on May 21, 2025.

Then there is the emergence of AI, designed in part to supplement and increase our intellectual capabilities. I have not used it yet myself, but we all have seen that AI has been integrating into daily life, including researching, planning, and writing for some individuals and experts—but at what potential cost? Besides the risks of erroneous AI contributions, can such enhancement actually end up decreasing our capabilities, autonomy, safety, and relevance as human beings?

And, yet, enhancement seems as if it can be crucially important, even to the extent of saving us from the destruction of wars, climate change, AI itself, and the like. Human nature, the root of our chronic vulnerabilities to fear, scapegoat, and then dominant the “other”, hasn’t changed much for the better by natural evolution, even if our technical capabilities have drastically improved.

Child-rearing will always have a desired place, and the more reinforcement of our positive qualities and tolerance, the better. But such universal child-rearing procedures at best seem like an impossible dream. More practically if used correctly and safely, could something like low-dose psychedelics and what is being called Scientist AI that prioritizes honesty⁴ help us evolve together for the better—and faster?

What’s your take on focusing more on enhancement in psychiatry?

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. Gregory S: Power Play. Time. June 9, 2025: 59-61.

2. Jeste DV. Positive Psychiatry: its time has come. J Clin Psychiatry. 2015;76(6): 675-683.

3. Ardern J. A Different Kind of Power. Crown; 2025.

4. Bengio Y. How to make AI safe. Time. June 9, 2025; 17-18.