No Fooling: Journeys for Freedom in Outer, Bodily, and Inner Space
Key Takeaways
- Artemis II and Passover are juxtaposed to illustrate freedom as exploration of new frontiers and emancipation from entrenched psychological constraints.
- Clinical psychopathology can function as captivity, with anxiety, depression, mood instability, psychosis, trauma triggers, dementia, and coercive groups restricting agency and participation.
Yesterday, we launched a spaceship the moon for the first time in 53 years. What implications does this journey have for psychiatry?
PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS
It seems a little unsettled, if not superstitious, to be writing an initial draft of today’s column yesterday, on April Fool’s Day yet, before the scheduled launch of Artemis II, to and around the moon for the first time in 53 years. After all, there have been disasters with prior launches. Yet, there is also the awe of a new rocket that can reach 500 miles an hour in 2 seconds.
Gratefully, the launch went off successfully, right about on time.
Last evening was another of the recent unusual confluences that perhaps have a combined serendipitous meaning. That meaning has to do with freedom, freedom in the world and freedom within our minds.
One of the confluences represents and celebrates outer space and human technical ingenuity. After weeks of delay, 4 astronauts were ready to launch.1 This plan followed our Presidential executive order to put Americans on the moon again by 2028. The astronauts themselves represent the human diversity of a Canadian, a woman, a Black man, and a white man.
Outer space is still our new geographic frontier. We do not know what is out there and what may turn out to be important for humanity, especially as climate change challenges the viability of earth for humans, let alone the competition with other countries. Perhaps we will start to find out more about our place in the universe. Like the prior launch to the moon, it may help to bring our country together in a time of conflict, at least temporarily.
Last night, soon after the space launch, began the Jewish 8-day holiday of Passover, celebrating the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Israel hundreds and hundreds of years ago. During the physical freedom of the journey, Jewish people faced another journey: one to get over their “slave mentality.”
Over time, many other cultures have embraced this kind of journey of freedom for themselves, often being invited to participate on the Jewish Seders of the retelling of the story and the accompanying sweet and bitter meal, as if we were still back in that historical story. Indeed, the annual empathic embrace of that story includes a moral obligation to work for the freedom of all oppressed people, now including those innocents in the current wars. The emotional aspects of human nature are much, much slower to change for the better.
In so many ways, these 2 events represent that journey which our patients often must take. Mental disorders can impede their full participation in society and limit their mind in its potential. Undue anxiety, depression, mood swings, hallucinations, trauma triggers, cults, and dementia can all compromise freedom of mind. These are all quests to various promised lands of freedom.
The same holds true now for ourselves. The business control of medicine seems to limit the opportunities for clinicians to heal patients and contributes to moral injuries and burnout.
On the day before April Fool’s Day, our Supreme Courts ruled against the Colorado ban on so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ adults and children. That would limit the bodily freedom for those with diverse gender identities and sexual preferences. Moreover, ethically speaking, conversion therapy has no scientific evidence for outcome success.
Three years ago, just after April Fool’s Day 2023, I wrote a column for Psychiatric Times about
Social psychiatrists are concerned with the mental oppressive forces in society, which I have come to call the social psychopathologies: the antis, isms, social phobias, cults, stigma, burnout, moral injuries, gun killings, and the like. So are other psychiatric mental health care disciplines. Now, 3 years later, I would like to amend and expand that role of social psychiatrists to all psychiatrists. In other words, all psychiatrists are social psychiatrists.
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. 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 serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.
References
1. Freitag C. Chicago space expert weighs in on launch of mission to orbit the moon. Chicago Tribune. March 31, 2026. Accessed April 2, 2026.
2. Moffic HS. Social psychiatrists as freedom fighters! Psychiatric Times. April 4, 2023.
3. Moffic HS. The psychiatric best of: and the 2022 winner is . . . freedom of mind. Psychiatric Times. December 22, 2022.
4. Moffic HS. We in psychiatry are freedom fighters of the mind. Psychiatric Times. July 16, 2024.
