Slow Down and Take Your Time

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

Last year around April Fools Day, we posted this video on fast psychiatry, meaning inadequate time to provide competent care. Included was the recommendation by Vincenzo Di Nicola in his Slow Thought manifesto. However, if anything, psychiatry and society has sped up even more. I discussed that in some detail in my March 19, 2024, column, “Artificial Intelligence and Psychiatry One Year Later.” One year later AI has sped so much up by being able to provide answers—not all correct—to questions virtually instantaneously. The opportunity and ability to savor most everything is jeopardized, including clinical care. Let’s not be fooled by being able to do things faster.

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.