The Columns’ Column: 4 Years of “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News”

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“Writing is one of the most important tools you can use to change your life.” - Bobby Bostic

Yesterday was Labor Day in the United States, and for the last 4 years this holiday has taken on extra special meaning for me because that is when we began this experimental column 4 years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic. Remember that?! If you know how much I value the psychological meanings of anniversaries, not only for patients, but everyone, you will readily appreciate why I am writing this perspective today on this column’s anniversary. A column’s column, if you will. Please forgive any undue narcissism.

It was meant to expand on my weekly video series “Psychiatry and Society” because the social psychiatric problems were so numerous and common at that unprecedented, risky, and controversial time. Though geared to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, I also wanted them to be of some occasional interest to the public.

Even so, I assumed that once the COVID pandemic was over, this column would have at least fulfilled its mission and be over. However, the endpoint of the pandemic has been nebulous, and infections are again picking up this summer. The vaccine is still controversial. Besides that, the general daily news wherever you find it is still full of social psychiatric challenges. How do you respond to the political pressures on what should and should not be written?

Writing in Quantity and Quality

And so, we are up to something like 700 columns, but that is just a quantity. Take some other writers in fields connected to psychiatry and mental health. There is the career coach Marty Nemko, PhD, who had a selected 2021 edition of his 4000 articles about improving your work and personal life.¹ There are the important social justice articles written by Ravi Chandra, MD, DFAPA, who I understand had written over 300 articles. Another psychiatrist, Donald W. Black, MD, as noted in his introduction for being Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Clinical Psychiatry, is renowned for writing about 400 scientific articles, with a special focus on severe personality disorders. One of my role models is the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, now 99, who has written scores of books on mind control and other social psychiatric concerns. Also, how could the voluminous writings of Sigmund Freud, whose books were burned but the Nazis, not be mentioned?

It seems that both with quantity and quality, assessing the value of writing has to be referred to a given context. Moreover, especially with the internet, we often do not know where our writing ends up and how it is received. Perhaps the most moving response I have received was from a colleague in Latvia.

Structuring These Columns

Eventually, I came up with a structuring goal for these columns: be personal, timely, and if possible, timeless too. Personally speaking, you may already know the basics and more: I am Jewish, my wife of 57 years is my muse, and retirement has turned out to be a “refirement,” turning from administration and patient care to writing and speaking.

The mystery of all of this may be how I come up with the column topics. Besides scouring the news, some tell me it is probably from my unconscious associations. Maybe so, but it feels more like I, like some other writers, am a vessel for some other source, a “divine” source of some kind, which would account for the ongoing apparent serendipities that inspire most every column of the last 5 years. Then the hard work of the writing and editing ensues. All that started around 5 years ago with the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah.

No AI has been used. After all, as the writer Rana Foroohar wrote in her article for Financial Times, “Why AI won’t take my job,”² so far AI does not provide the benefit of serendipity, plus those writers using AI had the smallest connectivity across different parts of their brain.

Being timely unfortunately does not seem to be that difficult and that is why we continue. Typical current topics have been AI, the engagement of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, the arts, climate instability, and the wars. The Goldwater Rule, however, provides a challenge on how to use our knowledge to comment on public figures.

Timeless issues are also plentiful. I have tried to pay special attention to what I term our social psychopathologies that arise out of our fears and scapegoating of the other, like anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, sexism, agism, and the like in the United States. We have made gains in connecting religion and spirituality to psychiatry. Most importantly, in regard to patient care, is what social determinants of mental health adversely influence care, like the usual lack of adequate resources, now made worse by federal cutbacks.

My tentative conclusion? Psychiatrists have the ability and expertise to contribute even more to improving mental health and well-being around the world, if only we branch out to more of society from our ever-important primary ethical task of addressing patient needs.

Grateful Acknowledgements

At the risk of missing some important people, I have much gratitude for the help and inspiration of others. Starting with Psychiatric Times, none of what may be valuable about these columns would have happened without the everyday support and involvement of the Psychiatric Times editors: Heidi Anne Duerr, MPH, for readily and enthusiastically appreciating the importance of the social issues; and Leah Kuntz, who for most every weekday morning, quickly turns around whatever draft I send her, short as 500 words or less as originally intended, or too long, as this one surely is. Not only that, but Leah always picks an image that strikingly supplements the words. Our Editor-in-Chief, John J. Miller, MD, has always been positive. Originally, it was the Editor-in-Chief of the time, Ronald W. Pies, MD, who brought me aboard to be an early blogger in 2010. He himself is a masterful, prolific, and deep writer about social psychiatric concerns, among other topics. Recently, the deputy editor emeritus of Psychiatric Times, Michelle B. Riba, MD, MS, conveyed the important message that it seemed that I had the crucial trust of the readers. Trust is of the essence of our basic social psychiatric relationships: parent-child, patient-clinician, friendships, and on up.

It has been gratifying to help bring on other inspiring and creative columnists and writers to Psychiatric Times. They are Frank A. Clark, MD; Vincenzo Di Nicola, MPhil, MD, PhD, FCAHS, DLFAPA, DFCPA, FACPsych; and Dennis Palumbo, MA, MFT.

Finally, lest I forget, my ongoing appreciation to my high school English teacher, Elaine Grauer, who with tough love put me on the labor of love writing path.

I am especially indebted to certain readers who most always provide feedback. Let us know what I can try to do better.

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. Nemko M. The Best of Marty Nemko, 2021 Edition. Independent published; 2020.

2. Foroohar R. Why AI won’t take my job. Financial Times. August 31, 2025. Accessed September 2, 2025. https://www.ft.com/content/0b56a85d-e71e-49c4-802f-316ed83cb386