It’s the Time, Stupid!

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

Remember the phrase that Past President Clinton used successfully in his election campaign: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” His interpretation, correct as it turned out then, and often since, is that the major concern of voters was the economy. Now, after the recent transition to our new federal government administration, the economy is still a concern, but perhaps “time” is catching up as a concern.

So once again, a video from the past is being shown, this one from 2 years back that was also shown about this time last year. I have come to value these reruns myself because they cover what has happened to a particular social psychiatry concern over time. And time is actually the subject once again.

Two years ago, I talked about our needing to work faster due to the demands of the businesses controlling medicine and psychiatry, a challenge contributing to our continuing physician epidemic of burning out.

On last year's rerun of the same video, “Slow Down and Take Your Time”, posted on March 27, 2024, my updated commentary touched upon how artificial intelligence is speeding up information collection, but sometimes not correctly and tending to reduce our ability to think things through ourselves.

Now this year, the fast pace is coming from politics and our governmental tradition. So, so many executive orders and policies are causing drastic adjustment difficulties, many of them having negative psychiatric repercussions, as we have been covering in our recent columns.

Once again, the “Slow Thought” manifesto of my colleague Vincenzo Di Nicola, MPhil, MD, PhD, FCAHS, DLFAPA, DFCPA, FACPsych, is so relevant and recommended. Accidents can happen with slowness, but more often with speeding out of control.

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.