We in Psychiatry Are Freedom Fighters for the Mind

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

Usually in the summers I do a column or 2 on the healing aspects of the music concerts we attend at Ravinia in Highland Park, the same Chicago suburb that I have written about concerning the tragic July 4 mass shooting that occurred 2 years back. This year, as we arrived to attend a concert on Saturday night, little did we realize that another shooting took place in the country, but this time an assassination attempt of Past President Trump.

It is not clear whether the opening comments of the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, were connected to the news or not. She summarized the upcoming concert pieces as being about freedom. I would agree with her and extend the relevance of freedom to psychiatry.

Freedom From Oppression

The first piece was a new one from the Ukrainian composer Irina Aleksiychuk. It was titled “Go where the wind takes you . . .” and included painful poem excerpts that seemed to relate to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Freedom of Expression

The second piece could also be said to represent freedom from oppression as the Black composer and cellist, Abel Selaocoe, was from the fledgling democracy of South Africa, a country now over 30 years postapartheid, but still with major economic and violence problems. As can be seen in history, as well as the Passover Exodus story of the Jewish people from Egypt, it often takes at least a generation for the mind to recover adequately from the trauma of slavery and a new generation emerge.

Freedom of Mentation

The final piece was the famous 5th symphony by Beethoven, which has an ominous kind of opening, to be resolved by the end with the glorious sounds of overcoming obstacles. Beethoven did so himself as he lost his hearing over time, but his mind remained sharp. His fight against his own depression continued to produce powerful and moving music.

Freedom in Psychiatry

Come to think about it, psychiatry is essentially about increasing appropriate freedom of the mind. Among the clinical challenges to do so are the undue negativity of depression, the undue fears of anxiety, the confusion of dementia, and the trauma triggers of posttraumatic stress disorder. On the other side of such mindful freedom is too much freedom of the mind—that is, a lack of control of thinking, as in mania or schizophrenia. Contrary to criticism that psychiatry takes away freedom with inpatient or outpatient commitment, as well as overuse of medication, even here the goal is freedom of the mind.

Freedom to Obtain Guns

Another danger of relative freedom is not only the potential harm of hateful speech, but the gun violence which is so common in America. Sometimes a near death experience produces a change in values and goals. Time will tell if that will happen with Past President Trump.

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.