It's Summertime and Mental Health Challenges Are Heating Up!

This video series is taking a short break while Dr Moffic travels. For now, enjoy the rerun of this video with updated commentary.

Last summer, Rusti opened the video on June 19, 2024, titled "Summertime and the Living Isn’t Easy," with an excerpt of the ever-popular song, "Summertime." In the musical "Porgy and Bess," the song closes with the baby crying, foreshadowing all the various traumas to ensue in the Black community.

The song was also a kind of warning for the increased mental health stress that seemed likely last summer, what with the 2 national political conventions and the accompanying political conflicts. But it would have been very difficult to predict what is extremely concerning about mental health this summer. After all, the new presidential administration has begun to cut mental health care services, resources which were already inadequate. Moreover, there will be an investigation about the limitations and risks of psychiatric medication. At least we had an unprecedented rally for mental health at our recent American Psychiatric Association annual meeting. Now we have to follow that up effectively.

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.