Heroes and Villains

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE WEEKEND NEWS

Generally, the news focuses on the extremes of good and bad; everyday life can be boring. As a result, the news focuses on would-be heroes or villains. The past weekend, from Friday morning to Monday morning, seemed to have both. Presumably, the heroes are positive for our collective mental health and the villains not so.

CNN’s Heroes

Commentary. For last Monday’s Weekend News, I missed CNN’s Hero of the Year show on Sunday night. The winner, Stephen Knight, who himself had gone through successful addiction treatment, creatively established a foster system for dogs so their addicted owners would feel comfortable to enter needed residential treatment.

Recovering From the Villain of the Sandy Hook Mass Shooting

Commentary. Saturday was the 12th anniversary of the Sandy Hook mass shooting by a perpetrator who had mental illness who killed 20 first grade students and educators. How do those immediately affected recover? One way was for family members to work on gun control. Another was building the Sandy Hook Memorial 2 years ago to provide a healing space. The memorial includes a young Sycamore tree in a pool of water, representing beauty, residence, love, protection, and fertility.

Villainy and Heroism in the Killing of United Healthcare’s CEO

Commentary. Notably, there has not been a public mourning display at the site where the company’s CEO was gunned down. On the contrary, the perpetrator has been viewed as a kind of folk hero by many. The villainy is killing someone “in charge” as a kind of symbol for all that is wrong in our business-controlled health care. The benefit is renewed attention to this problem that has harmed people needing health care. More needs to be learned about the perpetrator’s apparently deteriorating mental condition. Nothing, though, can bring back both the lives of the CEO and the patients that were denied life-saving treatments by his company, but improving our system can help prevent both in the future.

Who is the Hero and Who is the Villain?

Commentary. President-Elect Donald Trump won a $15 million dollar settlement of his defamation lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos, with the defamation in an interview using the term rape multiple times instead of sexual abuse. We in psychiatry know how crucial words and their meaning is in our clinical work.

These headlines in the news demonstrates humans and human nature at our best and our most vulnerable. Successfully treated mental disturbance can contribute to heroism, whereas untreated mental disturbance can contribute to tragedy.

Dr Moffic (he/him/his) is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry, and is now in retirement and refirement 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.