Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty that diagnoses and treats mental disorders, usually those requiring medication. Psychiatry is now a highly visible activity, lack of care in the community, compulsion, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse are few motivations. Starting with the identification of the major mental illnesses and how they are considered distinction from normality. Flourishing of psychoanalysis and its later transformation into more accessible psychotherapies gave a chance for better understanding. Modern psychiatry too brings with it new controversies such as the medicalization of normal life, the power of the drug companies and the use of psychiatry as an agent of social control.