Cohering: My Favorite Moment from the Democratic National Convention

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

After each day of the Democratic National Convention, many pundits share their favorite moments. As a psychiatric columnist or pundit, I suppose I should, too. I have experienced many favorite moments and will try to provide a summary perspective on both conventions next week, but here is my first choice.

On Wednesday night, in the midst of all the rousing and raucous speeches and music, came a quiet and short poem by Amanda Gorman. It came as a bit of a surprise as there apparently were not any notices that she was going to make an appearance. Remember her? She recited her poem “The Hill We Climb” poem to great acclaim at President Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. I tried to cover that reading in the video we did on January 27, 2021, “A Therapeutic Tapestry of the Arts at the Inauguration.”

This new poem is called “This Sacred Scene,” although the title was not readily conveyed either. Most all her lines, with their internal rhymes, are memorable to me, but this one is my social psychiatric favorite:

“And make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote . . .”

If you are not sure what cohering is supposed to mean, I did not either when I first heard it some years back. It is often defined as something like to stick together, be united.

As far I can tell, I would agree that cohering in the broadest senses is our hardest task, historically and currently, in the United States and other places, and across faiths, races, and political parties.

Moreover, cohering is essential to psychiatry. Don’t we have to cohere in forming a therapeutic alliance with a patient? In our teamwork in systems of care? In our collegial relationships? And even in our conception of what psychiatry is all about? This is not to say that it is ever easy, or that smaller group cohering can trump larger groups cohering, but as this line also says:

“We are one family regardless of religions, class, or color

For what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty, but our love for one another.”

Amen.

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 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.