Preparing for a Socially Scary New Year and What We Can Do About It

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“Venture to the depths of fear

That is the desolate region

Where true growth abides”

- Maria Popova

This past year, the annual winter holiday card designed by my wife and I was titled: “Preparing For a Scary New Year with togetherness, freedom, beauty, and service in 2025.” Using this statement, I would like to now start to examine that concern and challenge in some detail in upcoming columns.

When talking about something scary, fear is involved. For mental health and safety, the key for fear is whether it is too little, too much, or just right for the situation. Some fear is necessary to spur action, but too much is paralyzing. That assessment of fear applies both to individuals and large groups. Sometimes, individuals can do just fine in a fearful situation and vice versa.

Today, we encounter one of those collective and personal fears. Congress convenes to certify the 2024 election results, as we are triggered to the unprecedented invasion of the Capitol by the supporters of Trump 4 years ago, which threatened the process and lives. Now, Vice President Harris will have to certify her own loss, hopefully graciously this time around as a model of mental health.

Here are 10 other current social situations that we may cover in upcoming columns where fear seems warranted, necessary, and potentially transformative:

• Stopping Dr. Strangelove
• Rotting brains
• Housing for humanity
• Plasticizing people
• Climatizing the weather
• Collapsing bridges
• Wicked divisiveness
• Establishing boundaries
• Transitioning
• Socializing hate

We are still in a liminal period, now shortened to the 2 weeks between certification day and inauguration day. Tensions are likely to rise. We in psychiatry would do well to prepare to monitor and address the reactions of our patients and ourselves, and contribute what we can to the peaceful resolution of these conflicts at any systemic level.

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.