Psychiatry is a branch of See drugs, medication, and pharmacology for substances that are used to treat patients. This article is about medical practice. Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with restoring and maintaining health. Broadly, it is the practical science of preventing and curing diseases. However, medicine often refers more specifically to... medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see The Scream, the famous painting commonly thought of as depicting the experience of mental illness. A mental illness is a disorder of the brain that results in a disruption in a persons thinking, feeling, moods, and ability to relate to others. Mental illness is distinct from the legal concept... mental illness). While any physician may prescribe the medications used to treat various forms of mental illness, psychiatrists are more extensively trained in differential diagnosis of mental illness and keep up to date on the newest treatment modalities for mental illness. The term alienist is an old term for a psychiatrist, and the term shrink (from "head shrinker") is a (sometimes offensive) slang term for a psychotherapist.

Note that psychiatry is practiced by psychiatrists, Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. It is largely concerned with humans, although the behaviour and thought of other animals is also studied; either as a subject in its own right (see animal cognition), or more controversially, as a way... psychology by psychologists. Psychiatrists are The word physician should not be confused with physicist, which means a scientist in the area of physics. A physician is a person who practices medicine. In the United States the term physician is traditional and commonly used. In Britain and Australia, the term doctor is more common as physician... medical doctors and may prescribe Psychopharmacology is the study of the effects of any psychoactive drug that acts upon the mind by affecting brain chemistry. Amanita muscaria (the common Fly Agaric) is often regarded as the first such drug, with modern theories positing the discovery of its psychoactive properties circa 10,000 BCE. Modern psychopharmacology... drugs. Psychology is the broader study of behaviour and thought processes not just in the context of mental health. Clinical psychology is the application of psychology to mental illness or mental health problems. Clinical psychologists are involved in the diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of patients with psychiatric disorders, as well as research about all of these areas of clinical practice. Their clinical work may include the use of talk... Clinical psychologists specialize in mental health and have extensive training in therapy and psychological testing. They do not usually prescribe drugs.

Mind versus brain

Psychiatric illnesses were for some time characterised as disorders of function of the The mind is the term most commonly used to describe the higher functions of the human brain, particularly those of which humans are subjectively conscious, such as personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. Although other species of animals share some of these mental capacities, the term is usually used... mind rather than the In the anatomy of animals, the brain, or encephalon, is the supervisory center of the nervous system. Although the brain is usually cited as the supervisory center of vertebrate nervous systems, the same term can also be used for the invertebrate central nervous system. In most animals, the brain is... brain, although the distinction is not always obvious. In the current state of knowledge this distinction does not always hold true, as many psychiatric conditions have physical Etiology (alternately aetiology, aitiology) is the study of causation. The term (deriving from the Greek words aitia = cause and logos = word/speech) is used in philosophy, physics and biology in reference to the causes of various phenomena. It is generally the study of why things occur, or even the reasons... etiologies.

For a long period of history, Neurology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Surgical operations on the nervous system are done by specialist neurosurgeons. Neurological disorders are disorders of the central nervous system (brain, brainstem and cerebellum), the peripheral nervous system (including cranial nerves), and the autonomic... neurology and psychiatry were a single discipline, and following their division the steady advance in understanding of the basic functioning of Neurons (also called nerve cells) are the primary cells of the nervous system. In vertebrates, they are found in the brain, the spinal cord and in the nerves and ganglia of the peripheral nervous system. Classes There are three classes of neurons: afferent neurons, efferent neurons, and interneurons. Afferent neurons... neurons and the brain is bringing areas of the two disciplines back together.

Psychiatry was at first a pragmatic discipline that was part of general medicine, combining medicine and practical psychology. The work of Emil Kraepelin (February 15, 1856- October 7, 1926) was a psychiatrist who attempted to create a synthesis of the hundreds of mental disorders classified by the 19th century, grouping diseases together based on classification of common patterns of symptoms, rather than by simple similarity of major symptoms in the manner... Emil Kraepelin laid the foundations of scientific psychiatry, but was derailed by the Psychoanalysis is the revelation of unconscious relations, in a systematic way through an associative process. The fundamental subject matter of psychoanalysis is the unconscious patterns of life revealed through the analysands (the patients) free associations. The analysts goal is to help liberate the analysand from unexamined or... psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud His famous couch Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic place of psychology, a movement that damaged the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. He became interested in hypnotism and how it could be used to... Sigmund Freud. For many years, Freudian theories dominated psychiatric thinking.

The discovery of Lithium salts are chemical salts of lithium used as mood stabilizing drugs, primarily in the treatment of bipolar disorder, depression, and mania; but also in treating schizophrenia. Usually lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), but sometimes the citrate salt, lithium citrate is used. The orotate salt, lithium orotate, may also be used. The... lithium carbonate as a treatment for Bipolar Affective Disorder, also known as manic depression, or BPAD is a disorder of the brain resulting in unusually extreme highs and lows of an individuals mood, i.e. affect, over time. The high part of the mood is called mania (often times a euphoria) and the low part... bipolar disorder, followed by the development of fields such as Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecular level. The field overlaps with other areas of biology, particularly genetics and biochemistry. Molecular biology chiefly concerns itself with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interrelationship of DNA, RNA and protein synthesis and learning... molecular biology and tools such as Brain imaging is a fairly recent discipline within medicine and neuroscience. Brain imaging falls into two broad categories -- structural imaging and functional imaging. The former deals with the overall structure of the brain and the precise diagnosis of intracranial disease and injury. The latter is used for neurological and cognitive... brain imaging has led to psychiatry re-discovering its origins in physical and observational medicine without losing sight of its humane dimension.

Anti-psychiatry

For more on this topic see the main Beginning in the 1960s, a movement called anti-psychiatry claimed that psychiatric patients are not ill but are individuals that do not share the same consensus reality as most people in society. Adherents of this movement often refer to the myth of mental illness, after Dr. Thomas Szaszs controversial... anti-psychiatry article

Unlike most other areas of medicine, there is a politicised Beginning in the 1960s, a movement called anti-psychiatry claimed that psychiatric patients are not ill but are individuals that do not share the same consensus reality as most people in society. Adherents of this movement often refer to the myth of mental illness, after Dr. Thomas Szaszs controversial... anti-psychiatry movement that opposes the practices of, and in some cases the existence of, psychiatry. Some opponents of psychiatry state that selective financing by large multinational drug companies of both high ranking professional psychiatrists, research and educational material has led the practice of psychiatry to be subversively, and in some cases inhumanely, misled.

Some common criticisms of the field include the notion that no cause of mental illness has ever been found. There are a number of people trained in the field who have stated that physical tests can't distinquish between a normal person and a mentally ill person.

There are also criticisms based on what is perceived as political motivations on the part of psychiatrists as opposed to objective scientific criteria. An example often cited is the removal of Homosexuality may refer to: A sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love, and sexual desire exclusively or almost exclusively for members of the same sex or with the same gender identity (e.g. male or female). Sexual behavior with another of the same sex or gender regardless of sexual... homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses in the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, is the handbook used most often in diagnosing mental disorders in the United States and other countries. While widely accepted among psychologists and psychiatrists, the manual has proved controversial in its listing of certain characteristics as... DSM. Thus some critics say that a mental illness label such as Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion. The term schizophrenia comes from the Greek words σχίζω (schizo, split or divide) and φρενός (phrenos, mind) and is best translated as shattered... schizophrenia has no etiology and is only a matter of opinion. If the addition or removal of mental illnesses from the DSM is politically based, then the DSM can not be held by all as an objective standard.

Also some people criticize the psychiatric profession for treatments that get in and out of usage. An example is Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as electroshock or ECT, is a controversial type of psychiatric shock therapy involving the induction of an artificial seizure in a patient by passing electricity through the brain. Researchers remain uncertain as to exactly how ECT affects improvements in mental state, though patients with a variety... ECT which the psychiatric professioned considered a barbaric practice during the 1970s and 1980s only to be revised recently as a treatment for The word depression can mean: A decrease of functional activity in behavior patterns. The everyday term for a sad mood, see depression (mood) The medical condition clinical depression A sunken or depressed geological formation, see depression (geology) An economic depression, is a more severe downturn than a recession The Great... depression.

A few prominent critics of psychology and mental illness in general include Dr. Thomas Stephen Szasz (born April 15, 1920 in Hungary) is Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. Szasz is regarded as one of the most important critics of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry. He is a... Thomas Szasz, who is the author of "The Myth of Mental Illness", and Peter Breggin, who is the author of Background Fluoxetine hydrochloride (brand names include Prozac®, Symbyax® (compounded with olanzapine), Sarafem®, Fontex® (Sweden), Fluctine (Austria, Germany), Prodep (India), Fludac (India)) is an antidepressant drug used medically in the treatment of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and many other disorders. It is a selective serotonin reuptake... Prozac Backlash, as well as other books criticizing the use of psychiatric drugs.

Practice of psychiatry

In the The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America¹, the States, or (archaically) Columbia — is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii... United States, psychiatrists are board certified as specialists in their field. Physicians wishing to become board certified psychiatrists will practice as residents for four years, learning the specialty before taking the psychiatry boards. In other countries, similar rules usually apply.

Famous figures in psychiatry

Psychiatrists

• Alfred Adler Alfred Adler (February 7, 1870 - May 28, 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor and psychologist, founder of the school of individual psychology. Born in Penzing, Austria and raised in Vienna, he trained as a doctor at the University of Vienna Medical School and qualified in 1895. He became... Alfred Adler Individual psychology
• Aaron T. Beck, M.D. (born 1921), The Father of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, is a professor at the Psychopathology Research Unit of the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of focus are psychotherapy, psychopathology, studies of suicide, and development of assessment techniques. Books Diagnosis and Management of Depression Prediction of Suicide... Aaron Beck cognitive therapy
• Eugene Bleuler (b. 30 April 1857 - d. 9 February 1940) was a Swiss psychiatrist most notable for his contributions to the understanding of mental illness and the naming of schizophrenia. Bleuler was born in Zollikon, a small town near Zürich in Switzerland. He studied medicine in Zürich, and... Eugene Bleuler diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia
• Ian Brockington nosological pioneer
• Dr John Frederick Joseph Cade, Australian psychiatrist and discoverer (in 1948) of the effects of lithium carbonate as a mood stabilizer in the treatment of Bipolar Disorder. Lithium was one of the first chemical treatments of mental illness. Contents // References Cade, JFJ; Lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement... John Cade introduced lithium
• Ugo Cerletti (September 26, 1877 - July 25, 1963) was born in Conegliano, in the region of Veneto, Italy, on September 26, 1877. He studied Medicine at Rome and Turin, later specializing in neurology and neuropsychiatry. He studied with the most eminent neurologists of his time, first in Paris, France, with... Ugo Cerletti electroconvulsive therapy
• Edmund Chiu Huntington's chorea
• Timothy Crow biological basis of schizophrenia
• Pierre Deniker introduced chlorpromazine
• Leon Eisenberg Psychiatric anthropology
• Milton Hyland Erickson, MD (1901 - 1980) was a psychiatrist specializing in medical hypnosis. He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association. He was noted for: his often unconventional approach to... Milton Erickson hypnosis
• Jean Etienne Esquirol descriptive psychopathology and postnatal depression
• Frantz Fanon (1925 - December 6, 1961) was perhaps the preeminent thinker of the 20th century on the issue of decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization. His works have inspired anti-colonial liberation movements throughout the world for the past forty two years. Fanon was born in the Caribbean island of... Frantz Fanon effect of discrimination on an individual
• Daniel X Freedman
• Christopher Paul Lindsay Freeman electroconvulsive therapy
• Sigmund Freud His famous couch Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic place of psychology, a movement that damaged the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. He became interested in hypnotism and how it could be used to... Sigmund Freud introduced psychoanalysis
• Max Hamilton introduced depression and anxiety scales
• David Healy is a psychiatrist who is currently Reader in Psychological Medicine at Cardiff University College of Medicine. He is the author of a number of books and is particularly noted for his books detailing the history of the development of psychopharmacology and his criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry. Healy... David Healy influence of pharmaceuticals
• Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad introduced sodium valproate as a safer alternative to lithium
• Pierre Janet intoduced the concept of dissociation
• Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (February 23, 1883 - February 26, 1969), a German psychiatrist and philosopher, had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. Biography Jaspers was born in Oldenburg in 1883 to a mother from a local farming community and a jurist father. He showed an early... Karl Jaspers phenomenologist
• Eve Johnstone brain changes in schizophrenia
• Maxwell Jones therapeautic community
• Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of the neopsychoanalytic school of psychology. At university, he was a student of Krafft_Ebing. For a time, Jung was Freuds heir-apparent in the psychoanalytic school. After the publication of... Carl Gustav Jung analytical psychology
• Seymour Kety pioneer in psychiatric genetics
• Eric Richard Kandel (born November 7, 1929) is a neuroscientist who won a Nobel Prize in the year 2000 for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. He shared the prize with fellow recipients Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard. Kandel has been at Columbia University since... Eric R. Kandel
• Radovan Karadžić Photo courtesy of [http://www.freesrpska.org freesrpska.org Radovan Karadžić (born June 19, 1945) is a Bosnian Serb politician, poet, psychiatrist and alleged war criminal. Karadžić was born in Petnjica near Savnik in Montenegro and moved to Sarajevo... Radovan Karadžić psychiatrist, politician and alleged war criminal
• Robert Evan Kendell diagnostic problems in psychiatry
• Antoni Kępiński) (b. November 16, 1918 in Dolina - June 8, 1972 in Poland) was a Polish psychiatrist. Educated in Cracow where he attended one of the best Grammar Schools and from 1936 he started his medical studies at the Jagiellonian University. The beginning of WWII broke... Antoni Kepinski
• Arthur Klienmen psychiatric anthropologist
• Emil Kraepelin (February 15, 1856- October 7, 1926) was a psychiatrist who attempted to create a synthesis of the hundreds of mental disorders classified by the 19th century, grouping diseases together based on classification of common patterns of symptoms, rather than by simple similarity of major symptoms in the manner... Emil Kraepelin pioneer of psychiatry
• Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (August 4, 1840–December 22, 1902), German psychiatrist, wrote Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a famous study of sexual perversity, and remains well-known for his coinage of the term sadism. Krafft-Ebing was born in Mannheim, Baden, Germany, educated in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now in... Richard von Krafft-Ebbing
• Norman Krietman psychiatric epidemiology
• Ronald David Laing (October 7, 1927–August 23, 1989), was a psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness and particularly the experience of psychosis. He is noted for his views, influenced by existential philosophy, on the causes and treatment of mental illness, which went against the psychiatric orthodoxy of... R. D. Laing antipsychiatry movement
• Sir Aubrey Lewis nosological pioneer
• Alwyn Lishman neuropsychiatrist
• Peter McGuffin psychiatric geneticist
• Adolf Meyer psychobiology
• António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz (November 29, 1874 - December 13, 1955) was a Portuguese physician and neurologist. He was born in Avanca, Portugal. He was the inventor of prefrontal leucotomy (also known as frontal lobotomy) as a surgical approach to the radical treatment of several kinds of... Egas Moniz psychosurgery
• John Nemiah psychotherapist
• Ian Oswald sleep research
• Eugene Paykel life events and mental illness
• Ivan Pavlov Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (September 14, 1849 - February 27, 1936) was a Russian physiologist who first described the phenomenon now known as conditioning in experiments with dogs. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904. Pavlov was investigating the gastric function of dogs, by externalising... Ivan Pavlov pioneer of conditioning behavior
• Jean Piaget (August 9, 1896 - September 16, 1980), a professor of psychology at the University of Geneva from 1929 to 1975, was a francophone Swiss developmental psychologist who is most well known for organizing cognitive development into a series of stages - that is levels of development corresponding to infancy, childhood... Jean Piaget famous for his theory of cognitive development
• Philippe Pinel (20th April 1745 - 25th October 1826), regarded by many as the father of modern psychiatry, was born in a small town in Languedoc, the son and nephew of physicians. After receiving a degree from the faculty of medicine in Toulouse, he studied an additional four years at the... Philippe Pinel abolished all retraint in psychiatric treatment
• William Halse Rivers Rivers (1864-1922) was an anthropologist and psychiatrist, best known for his work with shell-shocked soldiers during World War I. Rivers most famous patient was the poet, Siegfried Sassoon. He is also famous for his participation in the Torres Straits expedition of 1898, and his consequent... W. H. R. Rivers psychiatric anthropologist
• Sir Martin Roth psychiatry of old age
• Sir Michael Rutter child psychiatry
• William Sargant mind control
• This article is on Kurt Schneider, a German psychiatrist; for information on the midget actor, also known as Harry Earles, see The Doll Family. Kurt Schneider (1887-1967) was a German psychiatrist known largely for his writing on the diagnosis and understanding of schizophrenia. Biography Schneider was born in Crailsheim... Kurt Schneider diagnostic criteria
• Mogens Schou lithium therapy
• Carl Hans Heinze Sennhenn eugenicist
• Peter Sifneos
• Elliott Slater psychiatric epidemiologist
• Robert Spitzer diagnostic criteria
• Harry Stack Sullivan is American psychiatrist born February 21, 1892 in Norwich, New York . He died January 14, 1949 in Paris, France. He received his medical degree in Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery in 1917. He headed from 1936 to 1947 the Washington School of Psychiatry. Sullivan was a... Harry Stack Sullivan interpersonal psychiatry
• Dr. Thomas Stephen Szasz (born April 15, 1920 in Hungary) is Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. Szasz is regarded as one of the most important critics of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry. He is a... Thomas Szasz antipsychiatry movement
• Eng Seong Tan cross cultural psychiatry
• E. Fuller Torrey is a noted schizophrenia researcher. He is a guest researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Neuroscience Center at St. Elizabeths Hospital. He is an active advisor and advocate for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). Dr. Torrey’s sister Rhoda has... Fuller Torrey Humane treatment of schizophrenia
• Ming Tsuang psychiatric geneticist
• Ladislas von Meduna pharmacoconvulsions
• Julius Wagner-Jauregg was born on March 7th, 1857, in Wels, Austria. His father was a knight (Ritter) of the German empire. He studied Medicine at the University of Vienna from 1874 to 1880, where he also studied with Salomon Stricker in the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology, obtaining... Julius Wagner-Jauregg malarial treatment of GPI
• Sula Wolff children under stress

Others:

• Key Redfield Jamison (18th October 1946-) is an American psychologist and science writer who is herself affected by manic depression, also known as bipolar disorder. Manic-Depressive Illness (with Frederick K. Goodwin) is one of the classic textbooks on bipolar disorder. She is currently Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns... Kay Redfield Jamison - a psychologist who, whilst not a psychiatrist herself, is professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a MacArthur Fellow.

Psychiatrists in fiction

• Dr. Alistair Crown in Bernice Rubens (July 26, 1928 - October 13, 2004) was a Welsh novelist and screenwriter. She was born in Cardiff, Wales, of Russian Jewish descent. Bibliography Set on Edge (1960) Madame Sousatzka (1962) Mate in Three (1966) The Elected Member (1969) (Booker Prize for Fiction 1970) Sunday Best (1971) Go Tell... Bernice Rubens' novel A Solitary Grief (1991) is a novel by Bernice Rubens about a Harley Street doctor who cannot cope with his own life. Increasingly alienated from his wife and daughter, he also considers himself unable to help his patients any longer and decides to start a new life together with a... A Solitary Grief ( 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. Events January January 2 - Sharon Pratt Dixon is sworn in as mayor of Washington, DC becoming the first black woman to lead a city of that size and importance. January 4 - The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously... 1991)
• Dr. Dick Diver in F.Scott Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896-December 21, 1940), was a Jazz Age novelist. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century. The self-styled spokesman of the Lost... F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel Tender is the Night book cover Tender is the Night is a 1934 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1932, Fitzgeralds wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was hospitalized for schizophrenia in Baltimore, Maryland, and the author rented the La Paix estate in the suburb of Towson, Maryland to work on... Tender is the Night
• Dr. Igor in Paulo Coelho (born August 24, 1947) is a lyricist and novelist. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and attended law school there, but abandoned his studies in 1970 to travel throughout Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, as well as Europe and North Africa. Two years later he returned... Paulo Coelho's novel Veronika Decides to Die
• The radio talk-show presenter Dr Dr. Frasier Crane was first introduced on Cheers in 1984. Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane is a fictional character played by Kelsey Grammer in the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier. Grammer played Frasier for twenty years, tying for the longest running character on prime-time American television with James Arness as Marshall... Frasier Crane in the sit-com Frasier
• Dr. Hannibal The Cannibal Lecter is a fictional character appearing in four novels by author Thomas Harris and their film adaptations. He is arguably the most fearsome serial killer ever depicted. The novels in which the character of Lecter appears are Red Dragon (published in 1981, filmed in 1986 as... Hannibal Lecter from Thomas Harris (born 1940) is an author, most famous for his book The Silence of the Lambs, which was made into a motion picture starring Jodie Foster as trainee FBI agent Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins in an Oscar-winning portrayal of psychopathic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. This book... Thomas Harris's books
• Dr. Laszlo Kreizler from The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr (born August 2, 1955) is an American novelist and noted military historian. He was born in New York City and is the author of The Devils General, The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness and Killing Time among others. He currently resides in upstate New York and teaches military... Caleb Carr
• Dr. Tobias Funke in the sitcom Arrested Development

Links moved from See drugs, medication, and pharmacology for substances that are used to treat patients. This article is about medical practice. Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with restoring and maintaining health. Broadly, it is the practical science of preventing and curing diseases. However, medicine often refers more specifically to... medicine, to be sorted and explained: Bipolar Affective Disorder, also known as manic depression, or BPAD is a disorder of the brain resulting in unusually extreme highs and lows of an individuals mood, i.e. affect, over time. The high part of the mood is called mania (often times a euphoria) and the low part... Bipolar disorder -- In ordinary conversation, nearly any mood with some element of sadness may be called depressed. However, for depression to be termed clinical depression it must reach criteria which are generally accepted by clinicians; it is more than just a temporary state of sadness. Generally, when symptoms last two weeks or... Depression -- Mental retardation (abbreviated as MR), is a term for a pattern of persistently slow learning of basic motor and language skills (milestones) during childhood, and a significantly below-normal intellectual capacity as an adult. During childhood, the term developmental delay is synonymous but currently preferred by some in most contexts... Mental retardation -- Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion. The term schizophrenia comes from the Greek words σχίζω (schizo, split or divide) and φρενός (phrenos, mind) and is best translated as shattered... Schizophrenia -- For other things named OCD, see OCD (disambiguation). For other types of obsession, see obsession (disambiguation). For other types of compulsion, see compulsion (disambiguation). Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder. OCD is manifested in a variety of forms, but is most commonly characterized by a subjects obsessive... Obsessive-compulsive disorder -- The DSM-IV, the U.S. standard reference for psychiatry, includes over 300 different manifestations of mental illness. Psychiatrists themselves are in dispute over how common some of these conditions are, or whether they should be listed as mental illnesses, and each version of the DSM is slightly different to... More...

See also

• Beginning in the 1960s, a movement called anti-psychiatry claimed that psychiatric patients are not ill but are individuals that do not share the same consensus reality as most people in society. Adherents of this movement often refer to the myth of mental illness, after Dr. Thomas Szaszs controversial... anti-psychiatry
• Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a sub-discipline of psychiatry that aims to understand mental illness and psychopathology in terms of models of normal psychological function. It is also a way of uncovering normal psychological processes by studying the effects of their change or impairment. It is derived from the fields of... cognitive neuropsychiatry
• This is a list of psychiatric drugs or medications used by psychiatrists to treat mental illness or mental distress. It is not exhaustive. Please note, drugs might be referred to by either their generic or trade names. A Abilify Adapin Adderall Alprazolam Amantadine Amitriptyline Amoxapine Anafranil Antabuse Aripiprazole Artane Asendin... list of psychiatric drugs
• neuropsychiatry
• A number of people considered ill and needing treatment by specific psychiatrists or psychiatric doctrine in general do not perceive benefit from the services offered or forced upon them. Many respond with outrage to both the system of values which judges them to be ill, and the coercive and violent... psychiatric survivors movement
• Psychoanalysis is the revelation of unconscious relations, in a systematic way through an associative process. The fundamental subject matter of psychoanalysis is the unconscious patterns of life revealed through the analysands (the patients) free associations. The analysts goal is to help liberate the analysand from unexamined or... psychoanalysis
• Psychopharmacology is the study of the effects of any psychoactive drug that acts upon the mind by affecting brain chemistry. Amanita muscaria (the common Fly Agaric) is often regarded as the first such drug, with modern theories positing the discovery of its psychoactive properties circa 10,000 BCE. Modern psychopharmacology... psychopharmacology
• This is a list of important publications in biology, organized by field. Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important: Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly Introduction – A publication that is a good... Important publications in Psychiatry
• This is a list of important publications in medicine, organized by field. Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important: Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly Introduction – A publication that is a good... Important publications in medicine
• This is a list of important publications in psychology, organized by field. Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important: Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly Introduction – A publication that is a good... Important publications in psychology