Introduction and Overview of Psychiatry
- Etymology
- Theory and focus
- Ethics
- Approaches
- Treatment
Practitioners and Career Choice in Psychiatry
- Psychiatrists as specialised physicians
- Career choice in the US
- Additional psychiatry subspecialties
Research in Psychiatry
- Interdisciplinary nature of psychiatric research
- Clinical and research psychiatrists
- Utilization of neuroimaging, genetics, and psychopharmacology
- Goal of discovering new treatment methods and classifying new mental disorders
Clinical Application of Psychiatry
- Psychiatric diagnoses and differential diagnosis procedure
- Diagnostic manuals (ICD-10, DSM, Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders)
- Treatment initiation and assessment
- Psychiatric medications and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
- Inpatient treatment and trends towards deinstitutionalization
Controversies and Criticisms in Psychiatry
- Criticisms of diagnostic manuals
- Validity and reliability of diagnostic categories
- Cultural bias and medicalization of human distress
- Financial conflicts of interest and political controversies
- Inpatient psychiatric wards and mental health laws
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions.
| Occupation | |
|---|---|
| Names | Physician |
Activity sectors | Medicine |
| Description | |
Education required | |
Related jobs | |
Initial psychiatric assessment of a person begins with a case history and mental status examination. Physical examinations, psychological tests, and laboratory tests may be conducted. On occasion, neuroimaging or other neurophysiological studies are performed. Mental disorders are diagnosed in accordance with diagnostic manuals such as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), edited by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5), published in May 2013, reorganised the categories of disorders and added newer information and insights consistent with current research.
Treatment may include psychotropics (psychiatric medicines) and psychotherapy, and also other modalities such as assertive community treatment, community reinforcement, substance-abuse treatment, and supported employment. Treatment may be delivered on an inpatient or outpatient basis, depending on the severity of functional impairment or risk to the individual or community. Research within psychiatry is conducted on an interdisciplinary basis with other professionals, such as epidemiologists, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, and clinical psychologists.
First attested in 1846. From French psychiatrie, from Medieval Latin psychiatria. By surface analysis, psych- + -iatry.
psychiatry (usually uncountable, plural
... Read More