Psychiatry in Society

From individual healing to collective creativity

Bandy X. Lee M.D., M.Div.

Saving Ourselves from the Dangerous Inept

Few people understand that we are on a path that, unless changed in the next decade or so, will lead to the destruction of our planet as a viable place to live on.

Lead Author Sheila Nielsen (to the right)

Coping with an Unstable President

Just as silence allows an abuser to continue abusing, our silence is assent when it comes to a dangerous regime.

Inequality as an Economic Disease, Violence as a Symptom

A rise in inequality resulting from corruption, oppression, and exploitation fosters the conditions that breed violent behavior, including mass shootings.

Them-versus-Us America

“Us” is becoming a subculture needing someone to blame to maintain cohesion. This will shape future behavior, and battle lines solidify.

Our Nation’s Danger from Within

The president possesses one of the most influential positions for telling people how to think, feel, and behave.

The Ethical Malpractice of Silence

Professionals can no longer be derelict in their duty to protect the public.

Abuse of Power as Pathology

Power is also an all-too-attractive end for pathological individuals who might try to seize it through any means.

Violence Against Women as Societal Dysfunction

The cataclysm of the “#MeToo” movement, starting in October 2017, we can interpret as an impulse for healing a societal ailment.

Inequality as a Lethal Disorder

To better understand violence and other societal ills, we must look at inequality as a disorder in itself.

Environmental Violence as Collective Suicidality

Environmental violence isn't a matter of a difference of opinion or priorities but of life or death—and whether we will all live together or die together.

Nuclear Violence as Madness

We are playing a gamble that makes our children more likely to die of a nuclear war than of a car crash.

Prisons as a Form of Societal Violence

If a system does not serve its purported function but targets minorities and serves as a surrogate ghetto, then the whole system requires reconsideration.

Violence as a Societal Mental Disorder

Now that we know that violence is societal, we may devise a system of diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

A Societal Psychiatry for Survival

Psychiatry has not prepared itself for mental health issues at larger scale; the entire nation, if not the world, is suffering as a result.

Fascism or Not Fascism?

In the US, an antidemocratic wave has ushered in Donald Trump, transforming what used to be a battle of ideologies into a battle of sickness versus sanity, falsehoods versus facts.

Treason or Not Treason?

It is a moment when defending democracy, the rule of law, and human rights also means responding appropriately to a mental health problem.

Psychiatrists Challenge a Gag Order

Maintaining a healthy democracy involves each of our following norms and standards, especially in times of intense social and political pressure.

Escalating Dangers in the Trump Era

Submission brings its own safety, but creates a condition for symbiosis to occur with a leader impaired enough to possess a drive to dominate, not govern.

Mental Health Experts Urge Revision of the Goldwater Rule

Our proposal is that the APA recognize the importance of psychiatrists’ social responsibility to warn the public when they discern danger to its well-being.

Mental Health Experts Advise Duties to Warn and to Protect

Childhood trauma is just one of the dangers that mental health professionals have predicted and feel the duty to warn about regarding the current presidency.

Mental Health Experts and the Obligation to Speak Up

Mental health professionals are mandated reporters: Regardless of the source, any knowledge of any child abuse—like at the U.S.-Mexican border—is reportable.

Mental Health Experts and Their Obligation to Safety

Many seem to be catching onto the reality that he does not respond to rhetoric, or to multilateral cooperation. The question is, when will our own leaders?

Mental Health Experts Warn of a Malignant Normality

The greater the likelihood of a serious problem in the mind, especially in someone who is supposed to be a leader and a protector, the more the populace will wish to avoid it.

Mental Health Experts Claim Their Right to Speak

Mental health professionals have an ethical duty to call attention to psychological dangerousness transforming into societal dangerousness.

Mental Health Experts Declare the Need to Evaluate

Americans should take mental health matters as seriously as legal ones and demand that the president receive a proper mental health test.

Mental Health Experts Speak of an Increasingly Dangerous Era

Mental health experts believe the country is facing increasing dangers as the situation continues to evolve and the public grows weary of ever-worsening symptoms.

Violence and Creativity

Scorning or destroying the very thing one needs is a symbolic act to press upon oneself and others that one does not need it.

Mental Health in the Public Sphere

Just as legal issues should be brought before legal professionals, if we are to maintain a healthy body politic, we must bring psychiatric issues to psychiatric attention.

The Cycle of Violence

Nuclear war, together with environmental degradation, represent a precipitous drive toward collective suicide and are thus forms of violence against ourselves.

Dangerous New World

Mental health professionals must be a witness to what is not normal and what could quickly become a mass movement toward self-destruction.

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