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What Is Psychiatry?

Psychiatry is the one of the branch of medicine that focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in mental health, including substance use disorders. Psychiatrists can easily assess both the mental and physical aspects of the dangerous psychological problems.

In today’s modern world there has been a hike in the psychiatric problems. There is a various number of problems for which someone might need a psychiatric in their life. These problems can be a sudden panic attack, frightening hallucinations, hearing “voices” or thoughts of suicide. Some long-term feelings can also cause problems and they can be of sadness, hopelessness, or anxiousness that has grasped the soul with perpetual purpose, some other problems which may cause everyday life to feel distorted or out of control. That makes living futile.

To understand the depth of these diseases it is important to study the brain. There have been many attempts to define, understand, and categorize disorders so that they can be better understood. There have been many methods to determine the best treatments according to the medical specialty of psychiatry; they all are dependent on the complexity of the brain.

Biological factors contribute to symptoms of distress along with the environmental factors. Both the factors vary from person to person and also according o the medical condition. Psychotherapy and drugs are quite effective in treating the psychiatric disorders. The combination of the two works the best. But according to the studies, it has been noticed that the effects kick in on different timetables.

Diagnosing Patients

Psychiatrists are physicians and hence, they can order a full range of medical laboratory and psychological tests to determine the true nature of the disease. Alongside tests, discussions with the patients help provide a small insight of a patient's physical and mental state.

Their education and clinical training help them to understand the relationship between the emotional and the medical illnesses. They also determine the relationships between the genes and family history, to evaluate medical and psychological data. This way they are able to make a better diagnosis to work with patients to develop the treatment plans.

TREATMENTS USED BY PSYCHIATRIST

Psychiatrists use a variety of treatments depending on the patients need and the modality of the disease.

  1. Psychotherapy
  2. Medications
  3. Psychotherapy and medications
  4. Psychosocial interventions
  5. Other treatments- such as electroconvulsive therapy or ECT

PSYCHOTHERAPY

Psychotherapy is also known as the talk therapy. This treatment modality includes a talking session with the patient. Talking about our problems can be very beneficial, and if that talking is with someone who does that professionally, then nothing can be better than that.

  • This therapy can be used to treat a wide variety of mental and emotional disorders. The major goal of psychotherapy is to eradicate or control disabling symptoms so the patient can function effectively. The extent of the problem decides the duration f the treatment. Sometimes it may take just a number of sessions like over a week or two. Sometimes it may take longer like many sessions over a period of years.
  • Psychotherapy can be done individually like between a patient and the therapist. If the problem impacts number of people and they can also help with the therapy then sessions can with a couple, with a family, or in a group along with the therapist. If the major problem is with the inner insecurities then the presence of other members can hamper the development of the patients, hence, in such cases, only private therapy sessions are required.
  • The essential thing is the trust and relationship between a person and the therapist. This relationship is the foremost thing to receive all the benefits from the psychotherapy.
  • Psychotherapy can be of two types- short-term and long-term sessions. Short-term sessions are limited in number and deal with an immediate issue. The long-term deals with longstanding and complex issues.
  • Confidentiality is the foundation of psychotherapy. Patients share personal feelings and intimate physical contact with their therapist. Therefore, the therapist must never share their patient personal information even with another therapist.

EFFECTIVITY OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

Psychotherapy has shown positive results as the patient is able to function better in their lives. Almost 75 percent of patients, who enter psychotherapy, have been benefited. Psychotherapy improves the emotions and the behavior as it becomes more positive. There are other benefits like fewer sick days, fewer medical problems, and increased work satisfaction and euphoric attitude.

Brain imaging techniques help to see the changes in the brain after a person has undergone psychotherapy and can be used for evaluation. There are many changes seen in the brain of a person with mental illness like depression, panic disorder, PTSD and other condition after they have received psychotherapy.

TYPES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

Therapists may combine elements to treat the patients with different mental illness from the different approaches to meet the needs of the person undergoing treatment.

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy- This therapy helps people to identify and change the thinking and the behavior patterns which can be harmful. Through this therapy, those behaviors are replaced with more accurate functional behaviors and thoughts. The therapy is about the ways that help the person focus on current problems and how to deal and solve them. CBT is useful for many disorders like depression, OCD, anxiety, trauma-related disorders. CBT can easily recognize a person with depression and change negative thought patterns or behaviors that may be contributory.
  • Interpersonal therapy- This therapy helps patients to understand the underlying interpersonal issues that are troublesome, like unresolved grief or any conflict with a family member or spouse. This therapy teaches the healthy ways to express emotions and decreases the communication gap between the two persons.
  • Dialectical behavior therapy- This therapy is a specific type of CBT that helps in the regulation of the emotions. This therapy mainly deals with the chronic suicidal thoughts with a borderline personality disorder and PTSD. It teaches the person to take personal responsibility to change the unhealthy and the disruptive behavior.
  • Psychodynamic therapy- This therapy is based on the behavior and the mental well-being that are determined by the childhood experiences, thoughts and feelings. A person is helped to improve the self-awareness and to change the old patterns that are the causative agents. Psychoanalysis is an intensive form of psychodynamic therapy.
  • Supportive therapy- This therapy uses guidance and encouragement to help patients develop their own resources and help beat the illness. Self-esteem is built and the anxiety level is decreased to improve social and community functioning. Supportive psychotherapy helps to deal with conditions which have the capability to affect the rest of the patient lives.

MEDICATIONS

Medications are used by psychiatrists to elevate the mood of the patient. They are used in much the same way that medications are used to treat high blood pressure, allergies, and diabetes. Once the thorough evaluation is complete the psychiatrists can prescribe medications to help treat mental disorders. Medications can easily correct the imbalances in the brain chemistry that is the leading causative factor to be involved in many mental disorders. There are many different types of drug that works best for a particular type of disorder.

Long-term medication treatment is needed for some patients and they will need to meet with their psychiatrist periodically. They need to be monitored about the effectiveness of the medication. They also need to be checked for any potential side effects with the prescribed medicine.

These are the various medicines that can be used by the doctors to prescribe according to the mental illness disorder the patient is suffering from.

Class of Medications

  1. Antidepressants – Antidepressants can be used to treat depression, anxiety and few other conditions. These medicines improve the feelings such as sadness, lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, hopelessness, and lack of interest in any activity. These medications can help elevate the mood of the patient and are not addictive and neither do they cause dependency. These are very safe medicines that can make the patient feel good from the inside. This medicine can be used to treat depression, panic disorder, PTSD, OCD, personality disorder and anxiety.
  2. Antipsychotic medications – These medicines are used to treat psychotic symptoms like delusions and hallucinations, schizophrenia, and even bipolar disorders. These drugs also make changes in the patient brain so that the patient can get rid of the causative behavior that leads to the disorders.
  3. Sedatives and anxiolytics – These medicines can be used to treat anxiety and insomnia. Sedatives are the medicine that induces sleep and thus makes the patient relax his brain. Anxiolytics treat the generalized anxiety disorders.
  4. Hypnotics – These drugs also induce sleep in the patients and thus can be used to maintain sleep in insomniac patients.
  5. Mood stabilizers – This medicine is mainly used to treat bipolar disorder which involves the alternating episodes of behavior. They can be given with the antidepressants to work better and faster.

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND MEDICATIONS

Psychotherapy is used in combination with the medication therapy. This therapy can be used to treat the mental health conditions. In certain cases, the medication can be clearly useful whereas in others cases psychotherapy is the best option.

But for some cases, combined medication and psychotherapy is the best treatment. Most of the doctors prescribe medications and psychotherapy together, as they have proved to give much better results. Previous cases have shown that the combination treats the disorders in an effective manner and are long-lasting. In this technique, both the inner chemical and the outer behavior can be changed and thus works the best.

OTHER TREATMENTS

There are few other treatments also like Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It is a medical treatment that uses electrical currents to be applied to the brain. This treatment is mainly used to treat severe depression that does not respond to other treatments. Light therapy is used to treat the seasonal kind of depression.

Few newer therapies which are being used nowadays are-

  • Deep brain stimulation (DBS)
  • Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS)
  • Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)