The Foolishness of Predicting the Future: Social Psychiatric Prediction #8

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day, one of my favorite annual days. In my weekday columns over the last 2 weeks, I have been trying to predict the future from the perspective of social psychiatry. If you have been reading them, perhaps they seem foolish.

However, if the future was just in the immediate times after the prediction, maybe they were relevant and even a bit prophetic if we examine some current events and reader feedback.

-Artificial Psychiatry from March 20th. Take our predicted focus on artificial intelligence (AI) for psychiatry. Increased warnings and concerns have escalated about TikTok, not only from a security standpoint, but for all the harms social media are contributing in terms of reduced live relationships and consequent brain alterations. The emerging idea of making an AI double of oneself poses positives in terms of medical understanding, but negative in terms of outside control. Actually, things change so fast in AI that the future seems like a continual now. Many are recommending guardrails for AI. We in psychiatry should be among those.

-Psychedelic Daily “Vitamins” from March 21st. Right here at Psychiatric Times, the article 1 day later, “International Community Must Prioritize Post-War Expansion of Ukraine’s Mental Health Care System,” provided a mental health update by the Ukrainian psychologist Valerie Palii. A couple of months previously, the Territorial Defense Forces brought up the potential role of psychedelics in the healing of the war trauma aftereffects after the invasion of over.

-A Psychiatrist US Surgeon General from March 23rd. All personal responses to me supported the need for psychiatrist involvement in the upper levels of our federal government. What to name it seems more challenging. I am toying with the more colloquial “US Surgeon Shrink”!

-The United States Psychiatric Association from March 24th. Some have responded with doubting that a renaming to United States Psychiatric Association (USPA) would make much difference. An emergency medicine physician would perhaps change the order to Psychiatric Association of the United States (PAUS).

Some have commented on the series to date. One wonders if I was getting at something, like “political psychotherapy,” “where the mental hygiene community addresses political contentiousness and shares their experiences and tools for overcoming interpersonal obstacles, and for responding appropriately to what seems like illogic.” That might be the Shakespearian wisdom of the fools.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who has specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry. A prolific writer and speaker, he received the one-time designation of Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Assembly of the American Psychiatric Association in 2002. He is an advocate for mental health issues related to climate instability, burnout, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism for a better world. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times™.