A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly mental issues. Sometimes a psychiatrist works within a multi-disciplinary team, which may comprise clinical psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, and nursing staff. Psychiatrists have broad training in a biopsychosocial approach to the assessment and management of mental illness.
Charles Julius Guiteau was an American man who assassinated James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, in 1881. Guiteau believed he had played a major role in Garfield's election victory, for which he should have been rewarded with a consulship. He felt frustrated and offended by the Garfield administration's rejections of his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris to such a degree that he decided to kill Garfield and shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield died two months later from infections related to the wounds. In January 1882, Guiteau was sentenced to death for the crime and was hanged five months later.
Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry and is related to criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry. According to the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it is defined as "a subspecialty of psychiatry in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied in legal contexts involving civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory, or legislative matters, and in specialized clinical consultations in areas such as risk assessment or employment." A forensic psychiatrist provides services – such as determination of competency to stand trial – to a court of law to facilitate the adjudicative process and provide treatment, such as medications and psychotherapy, to criminals.
Park Elliot Dietz is a forensic psychiatrist who has consulted or testified in many of the highest-profile US criminal cases, including those of spousal killer Betty Broderick, mass murderer Jared Lee Loughner, and serial killers Joel Rifkin, Arthur Shawcross, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Kaczynski, Richard Kuklinski, the D.C. sniper attacks, and William Bonin.
The Utica Psychiatric Center, also known as Utica State Hospital, opened in Utica on January 16, 1843. It was New York's first state-run facility designed to care for the mentally ill, and one of the first such institutions in the United States. It was originally called the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. The Greek Revival structure was designed by Captain William Clarke and its construction was funded by the state and by contributions from Utica residents.
Amariah Brigham was an American psychiatrist and, in 1844, one of the founding members of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, which eventually became the American Psychiatric Association. While serving as the first director of the Utica Psychiatric Center, Dr. Brigham launched and became the first editor of the Association's official journal, The American Journal of Insanity.
Larry M. Davis, M.D. was a practicing American psychiatrist from 1971 until his accidental death in 2006.
Vladimir Petrovich Serbsky was a Russian psychiatrist and one of the founders of forensic psychiatry in Russia. The author of The Forensic Psychopathology, Serbsky thought delinquency to have no congenital basis, considering it to be caused by social reasons.
Isaac Ray was an American psychiatrist, one of the founders of the discipline of forensic psychiatry. In 1838, he published A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, which served as an authoritative text for many years.
Alan Abraham Stone was an American psychiatrist who was the Touroff-Glueck Professor of Law and Psychiatry Emeritus at Harvard Law School. His writing and teaching has focused on professional medical ethics, issues at the intersection of law and psychiatry, and the topic of violence in both law and in psychiatry. Stone served as president of the American Psychiatric Association. He also served for a number of years as the film critic for the Boston Review.
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, perceptions, and emotions.
Ira Thompson Van Gieson was an American neurologist, psychiatrist, bacteriologist and neuropathologist.
Manfred Schanfarber Guttmacher was an American forensic psychiatrist and chief medical officer who focused on the connections between psychiatry and criminal law. Guttmacher testified in the trial of Jack Ruby and authored The Dog Must Wag The Tail: Psychiatry And The Law, America's Last King: An Interpretation of the Madness of George III and other works.
Edward Charles Spitzka was an eminent late-19th century alienist, neurologist, and anatomist. Dr. Spitzka was the author of the landmark psychiatric manual "Treatise on Insanity, Its Classification, Diagnosis and Treatment" published in 1883. He pioneered studies of the anatomy of the human nervous system.
Ebenezer Kingsbury Hunt was a prominent physician in Hartford, Connecticut.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to psychiatry:
Edward Nathaniel Brush was an American physician, a mental hospital administrator, and an editor of psychiatric journals.
Jesse Montgomery Mosher, M.D. (1864–1922), an American physician, practiced psychiatry in Albany, New York and served as editor to medical journals. He was credited with establishing the first psychiatric ward within the organization of a general hospital.
George Alder Blumer, M.D. was a physician, a mental hospital administrator, and a journal editor. He was a leader in the provision of humanitarian care for mental hospital patients.
Allan McLane Hamilton was an American psychiatrist, specializing in suicide and the impact of accidents and trauma upon mental health, and in criminal insanity, appearing at several trials.
