by Bandy X Lee
Although atomic weapons have not been used since World War II and thermonuclear weapons have never been deployed, the world has come perilously close to nuclear devastation at least a dozen times. We cannot afford to keep pushing our luck. Many of the world’s most thoughtful scientists, intellectuals, political leaders, and journalists have warned that we are now closer than ever to a catastrophic outbreak of World War III. After years of research and personal discussions with high-ranking military and political figures involved in the concept of “Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD), investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen has written a chilling and insightful book, Nuclear War: A Scenario. Her work powerfully illustrates our current predicament, where in mere minutes, fear, accident, miscalculation, or misjudgment could lead to our total annihilation. The terrifying and absurd weapons now hang over civilization like an ever-present Sword of Damocles.
I consider myself immensely fortunate to have met with Dr. Bernard Lown, the renowned American cardiologist, in the years before his passing in 2021. Dr. Lown was already famous for inventing the defibrillator when, in 1980, at the height of the Cold War, he realized that he and his medical colleagues must act urgently to prevent nuclear disaster. He felt the need to get the message out that no medical care would be of use after a nuclear war, since nearly all advanced life forms would have perished. In response, he founded Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and later the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which grew to 135,000 members in sixty countries within five years and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He gifted me a copy of what I consider an essential book, Prescription for Survival: A Doctor’s Journey to End Nuclear Madness. Dr. Lown was both the mentor of my own mentor, Dr. James Gilligan, and a close friend to my dear friends, Drs. Regis DeSilva and Bruce Price. I was deeply humbled when he called my work "incredibly important," and during our conversation, it felt as though he was passing the baton to me: “Now it is your turn.”
Now in 2025, we are even closer to the precipice of human disaster. The extreme dangers of nuclear, biological, and space warfare continue to escalate, while global climate destruction is no longer a distant concern but an immediate reality. And the risk of global pandemics is more urgent than ever, and scientists developing artificial intelligence have raised alarms about the dangers of their own creations, much like the atomic scientists of the past.
Even if our world avoids the worst outcomes, humanity must urgently unite its knowledge, expertise, and resources to address these supreme dangers. In doing so, we could enjoy peace, prosperity, and a dramatically-improved quality of life. This was a key lesson from my consultative work with the World Health Organization: when we take a scholarship-based, public health approach to violence prevention, we not only reduce violence but enhance life in virtually all dimensions. Yet, instead of embracing this path, we are increasingly dividing ourselves, viciously vilifying one another, and directing ever greater resources and intellect toward creating destructive technologies that will inevitably lead to global catastrophe.
We can no longer wait for the next World War to prompt the creation of a new, life-affirming World Order. In the past, atomic scientists led the charge. Now, it is the responsibility of scientists and healers of the human mind to take the lead.
A recent, terrible misstep by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) highlights this critical role. The APA's refusal to address the psychological dangers at the highest levels of U.S. leadership, and its decision to silence conscientious voices calling for public education and warnings, led to tragic results. By neglecting its societal ethical duty—as outlined in its Preamble of ethics and obligated by the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Geneva, “the modern Hippocratic Oath”—the APA violated its responsibility to society. By focusing solely on private psychiatric issues and institutional preservation, the APA failed to address the public mental health crisis at the very onset of a global psychic pandemic, unleashing untold harm upon society as unseen by a health association in decades.
This experience only highlights the importance of the role that psychological professionals have to play, as Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung stated in his book, This Symbolic Life:
Indeed, it is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes. The supreme danger which threatens individuals as well as whole nations is a psychic danger. Reason has proved itself completely powerless, precisely because its arguments have an effect only on the conscious mind and not on the unconscious…. It is therefore in the highest degree desirable that a knowledge of psychology should spread so that men can understand the source of the supreme dangers that threaten them. Not by arming to the teeth, each for itself, can the nations defend themselves in the long run from the frightful catastrophes of modern war. The heaping up of arms is itself a call to war. Rather must they recognize those psychic conditions under which the unconscious bursts the dykes of consciousness and overwhelms it (Jung, 1954).
This is why I have called our era, “the Psychological Age,” analogous in importance to “the Atomic Age.”—because now the collective survival of our species depends on the mastering of our own minds. Now physicians, especially psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, I believe, must try to heal the world, mentally as well as physically, because if we do not, we face the ultimately catastrophic outcome foreseen in One World or None and the Doomsday Clock.
Hence, the purpose of this curriculum is to demonstrate that knowledge can make even the most overwhelming problems manageable, and that understanding can turn anxiety and helplessness into effective action. Achieving this realization is a spiritual act, as it demands a complete reorientation of purpose. Now that we have covered the current World Order and its structural, environmental, and nuclear consequences, the upcoming weeks will focus on the psychological impacts of these crises—examining mass psychosis, unfit leadership, and our collective suicidality—and how “Psychotherapy for the World” might begin to take shape.
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