Interview with Psychiatrist Fotis Morogiannis MD PhD
In the second issue of STIGMA Magazine we host Mr. Fotis Morogiannis, who is a Therapist in Psychiatry, Neuropsychiatry, Psychosomatic and Behavioral Disorders. He has been active for a number of years in the field of Psychiatry as a private individual in the city of Ioannina with a large participation in support and counseling structures.
Q: Mr. Morogiannis, would you like to tell us a few words about you and your professional activity?
A: My professional activity in Ioannina starts in 1986, with my graduation from the Medical School. I am a doctor, psychiatrist, doctor of Medicine with studies at EKPA and the University of Ioannina. I have been working for a total of 35 years in the field of Medicine and close to 30 years in psychiatry. I have worked in the hospitals of the Prefecture of Ioannina, in the mental health center, in many structures of primary health care and in recent years I deal exclusively in the private sector with the treatment of psychiatric problems of the people of the community, from Epirus, Northwestern Greece, Ionia Islands, Northern Epirus and Albania. My professional activity is the treatment of psychiatric disorders, counseling and Psychotherapy, both individually and at the level of family or couples. I apply preventive interventions to prevent crises and behaviors, such as tackling delinquency in adolescents and young people, child abuse, bullying in schools, and the prevention of domestic violence. I volunteer at social organizations like the Ark of the World, helping children with behavioral problems. I am a counselor at the Association of Children with many children of the Prefecture of Ioannina, providing psychotherapy to teenagers and couples. I participate online as a consultant in the company "Movement of Brothers with Mental Health Problems" - KIN.APSY, where we give advice for dealing with crises to people who have brothers with psychiatric problems. I am a member of the Council of Psychiatrists of the Private Sector of the Hellenic Psychiatric Society. I am a consultant to institutions and associations, I give lectures at conferences in private schools and tuition centers. Regarding the press, I have a constant presence for the last 20 years, in fact I maintained a stable column in the magazine EPILOGES with a large series of articles about the city.
Q: What prompted you to pursue this medical specialty?
A: Psychiatry is generally practiced by people belonging to four groups. A group are those who want to study the Nervous System, the brain, to study the biological basis of human behavior and our mental health. They are the people who are interested in neuroscience. The second group is that of people who deal with society and want to see its effects on mental health, social birth. It is the people who want to change society based on the mental change of people and institutions, the so-called social reformers. Many colleagues who start from such directions in psychiatry, are involved in activism and politics, are involved in movements and intervene in society, are active members of the medical community, are active citizens. The third group consists of those who consider psychiatry an easy specialty and that they can easily practice it, which is a big mistake, Psychiatry is a particularly difficult clinical specialty of Medicine. In the fourth group are people who want to go to psychiatry because they themselves have some problems and believe that through their contact with the object they will control, correct or cure them. I, after 35 years, consider that I belong to the first 2 groups, I started from the second, that is, as a person who wants to see the influences of society on mental health and how this mental change can change society. I finally end up with the first one. I have grown up and I am quite skeptical about the changes that take place in people and society, recognizing their complexity, I have now stabilized my interest in understanding people, psyche, ideas, emotions, brain, but also communication. I have focused on prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of psychiatric problems and psychological disorders.
Q: What are considered to be the characteristics required for a successful course in this field?
A: Undoubtedly, you must care about people, respect the personality of the person, his culture and history, the way it is formed, its particularities. You must have the ability to approach the person, to approach him as a whole. Have the awareness to understand the way he thinks, feels and works. You need to be able to stand in front of it with distance so that you do not get carried away by the weight of the approach and the intensity you receive. After all, because this place has so many difficulties and things may not be so pleasant, regarding the cure of the classic diseases that we know are difficult and difficult to cure, there a psychiatrist should have what we call resistance to frustration, when his abilities as a therapist to deal with a problem are not effective, to learn to endure, not to collapse, to continue.
Q: As a doctor, have you dealt with coronavirus 2019 (Coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19) at a research level or at the level of medical cases?
A: At the research level not because I am not in a research service. I work in the private sector in primary mental health care and the data I have from the pandemic are exclusively clinical. My occupation had two aspects, first I was part of the coronavirus medical group, a network of doctors from all over the world where all the participants wrote something of our specialty every day. I wrote on my website daily and on the page of the coronavirus medical group that I saw every day from people, estimates from the course of the pandemic and data from the behavior of people or incidents. The census covered the period from March 15 to May 4, from when the restrictive measures were lifted. At the same time I was informing and communicating with colleagues on the subject. The second aspect was the observation of humans and the recording of clinical data. Initially with difficulty because the work changed form and was done via computer with teleconferencing and psychotherapy sessions. I participated in the support line of PIS (Panhellenic Medical Association) to deal with the pandemic. In this second involvement with the pandemic I first realized that there was a recession in psychopathology in general. We did not have many new cases and emergencies. Probably the confinement in the house with the presence of many people worked protectively so that anxiety disorders, psychosis and depression did not occur. Second, the increase in cases was related to the phobic and neurotic manifestations of people who have a hypochondriac, phobic, compulsive personality and was related to the infection and the appearance of symptoms. Third, I found that those with chronic symptoms needed to have their treatment adjusted or supplemented. Fourth, the need to address tensions within the home due to the constraint was identified. I was impressed because I had so many such incidents, and it troubled me. The characteristics of the conflicts did not have the classic form, ie the violent behavior of a man towards a woman. There were almost no incidents of violence against women, except in one case of marital infidelity. There have been many conflicts between children and children and parents. I noticed an expanded phenomenon of violence. Finally, the feeling that the previous period left me is that it was a tiring period with many hours of work and a period when we experienced the endless loneliness in the workplace and the incredible desolation of the city.
Q: How do you think the confinement, isolation & psychological burden of people, due to covid-19, has affected and will affect business and the market?
A: The restriction for some has worked positively in terms of expanding their interests with technology, teleworking, distance learning, evaluating new possibilities of adaptation. There were internal reshapes of attitudes and re-evaluations of attitudes, perceptions, views, etc. Entrepreneurship was undoubtedly affected, but there were companies that were favored such as pharmacies, supermarkets, delivery, take away, the media, doctors and nurses in the public sector mainly. Personally, I believe that the market will recover very soon because the economy is as flexible as entrepreneurs. I do not think the damage was so great because the space was small. New opportunities may arise throughout this story, involving the development and exploitation of people in fields or professions we do not imagine. The media functioned as always aggressively, often catastrophically and had a stressful effect. The frequent information and contact from the government, however, worked positively. There was information so that people knew how to move. Much of the information was leaked to the government's prudent people and serious journalists. The health crisis developed less threateningly due to the familiarity from the previous crisis, the financial one. It is very impressive how disciplined Greek society is, with how coolly it reacted from the moment we went through 10 years, 2 crises so serious.
Q: What are your suggestions regarding the management of this situation by society as a whole?
A: We must first acknowledge that we are not omnipotent, that there is uncertainty and uncertainty in this life. Science has been widely criticized for not predicting a pandemic, even though it is so advanced. We were in danger of a virus that crossed the border uncontrollably. It is also important to stop irrational perceptions of superstition and conspiracy. We are not in "there are no truths". We do not accept that everyone is free in their destiny, that there is no absolute truth, that there are no universal values and actions that are justified, etc. The irrationality of postmodernity is very wrong, there are absolute truths, starting with human life and then science. The chaos of irrationality introduced by postmodern theory must be seriously and methodically reconstructed. We must return to some of the classic values. In Greece we believe in science and the value of life and that is why the messages of prevention and the adoption of measures passed more easily. Finally, we must not operate individually but as a social whole. Altogether, as families, neighbors, colleagues, co-workers or friends. Individual responsibility is the basis of social consciousness and coexistence. We must coexist on a human, family, national, European level.
Q: Do you think that the society will be affected in the long run by the appearance of the new crown and the health crisis that it caused? If so, in what way?
A: Undoubtedly there is an influence on society and economic life. Societies will show introversion, international cooperation will be weakened. The ensembles retreated in favor of the nation-state that decided on the measures and took responsibility. Each country took responsibility for its citizens. This was a small threat to the so-called globalization. The groups of states that were in contact at this stage seem to have quick reflexes. There is consultation at European level on joint management of development and funding issues. That people will become different in terms of personality, no, it is not possible because people do not change quickly and easily. Personality changes from things that happened in childhood or from incidents that happened in the family. People will just adapt in a different way. There is a direction for new social behaviors inspired by different principles in communication, coexistence, empathy and the lifting of certainties. This wind of change that blows very strongly in Greece and in Europe, I think will take us in a better direction and so we will feel the change through this wave that comes after the crisis.
Q: "So you think the changes are small"
A: I do not think they are few, they are enough and they are not consolidated because the space was small. What changed us is the experience of this event. We experienced this event restrictively even in the cultural rituals of the country, without the celebration of Easter, on the 25th of March without parades, without the embrace of loved ones. We lost all the rituals of social life and coexistence, the handshake, the hug, the kiss of friendship and love. In everyday life, however, we enjoyed other things at home, took care of the environment and finally reached better scales of prevention and promotion of quality of life and health.
Q: In closing, would you like to make a general statement on the subject?
A: The period we lived in is historic, unprecedented and unpredictable. We had to experience something similar for about 100 years, from 1918, with the appearance of the Spanish flu in very different conditions, those after the First World War. Human life had little value then. Today we live in another age, where no one could imagine what happened. I can say it did good to those of us who survived. It put us in a process of reflection and redefinition. Therefore, I believe that at the level of human relations and social organization, this period will have positive results, will bring people closer and will create, in a new way, bonds of trust.
