A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are medical doctors and 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 bio-psycho-social approach to assessment and management of mental illness.
Neuropsychiatry or Organic Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neuropsychiatry, the mind is considered "as an emergent property of the brain", whereas other behavioral and neurological specialties might consider the two as separate entities. Neuropsychiatry preceded the current disciplines of psychiatry and neurology, which previously had common training, however, those disciplines have subsequently diverged and are typically practiced separately.
Liaison psychiatry, also known as consultative psychiatry or consultation-liaison psychiatry is the branch of psychiatry that specialises in the interface between general medicine/pediatrics and psychiatry, usually taking place in a hospital or medical setting. The role of the consultation-liaison psychiatrist is to see patients with comorbid medical conditions at the request of the treating medical or surgical consultant or team. Consultation-liaison psychiatry has areas of overlap with other disciplines including psychosomatic medicine, health psychology and neuropsychiatry.
Clouding of consciousness is when a person is slightly less wakeful or aware than normal. They are not as aware of time or their surroundings and find it difficult to pay attention. People describe this subjective sensation as their mind being "foggy".
Child and adolescent psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders in children, adolescents, and their families. It investigates the biopsychosocial factors that influence the development and course of psychiatric disorders and treatment responses to various interventions. Child and adolescent psychiatrists primarily use psychotherapy and/or medication to treat mental disorders in the pediatric population.
Maximilian Fink is an American neurologist and psychiatrist best known for his work on ECT. His early work also included studies on the effect of psychoactive drugs on brain electrical activity; more recently he has written about the syndromes of catatonia and melancholia.
Geriatric psychiatry, also known as geropsychiatry, psychogeriatrics or psychiatry of old age, is a branch of medicine and a subspecialty of psychiatry dealing with the study, prevention, and treatment of neurodegenerative, cognitive impairment, and mental disorders in people of old age. Geriatric psychiatry as a subspecialty has significant overlap with the specialties of geriatric medicine, behavioural neurology, neuropsychiatry, neurology, and general psychiatry. Geriatric psychiatry has become an official subspecialty of psychiatry with a defined curriculum of study and core competencies.
Karl Kleist was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who made notable advances in descriptive psychopathology and neuropsychology. Kleist coined the terms unipolar (‘einpolig’) and bipolar (‘zweipolig’) that are now used in the concepts of unipolar depression and bipolar disorder. His main publications were in the field of neurology, and he is particularly known for his work on the localisation of function in the cerebral cortex of man including mapping of cortical functions on brain maps. The work is based on several hundred cases of shot wounded patients of World War I, whose functional deficits Kleist deliberately studied and described in detail during their lifetime. Later on, by means of brain autopsy, he documented the lesion and was, thus, able to localize brain function in each single case doing this also on cytoarchitectonical grounds. Kleist was a student of Carl Wernicke and his work was closely associated with the Wernicke tradition. Among his students were Edda Neele and Karl Leonhard, who further developed the Kleist-Leonhard classification system of psychosis.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to psychiatry:
The American Neuropsychiatric Association (ANPA) is a non-profit organization of professionals in neuropsychiatry, behavioral neurology and the clinical neurosciences, with over 700 members from around the world. Established in 1988, its mission is to improve the lives of people with disorders at the interface of psychiatry and neurology, with the vision of transforming recognition, understanding and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. It founded in 1988 by two academic physicians doubly certified in neurology and psychiatry, Barry S. Fogel and Randolph Schiffer.
Albert Moore Barrett, M.D. (1871-1936), an American physician, was professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan, and credited with the establishment of the first psychiatric hospital within a university.
Daniel Blain, M.D. (1898–1981) was an American physician and was the first medical director of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the first professional medical society, founded in the United States in 1844. He may be credited with the leadership which brought changes in the practice of psychiatry after World War II and in advocating the treatment for people with mental disorders.
Thomas William Salmon, M.D. (1876-1927) was a leader of the mental hygiene movement in the United States in early twentieth century.
Walter Earl Barton, M.D. (1906–1999) was an American physician, a psychiatric administrator, and a leader in American psychiatry.
Charles L. Raison is an American psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health as well as the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families and Professor with the School of Human Ecology in Madison, Wisconsin.
Scott Laurence Rauch is the President, Psychiatrist in Chief, and Rose Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Chair of Psychiatry of McLean Hospital, who is known for his work using brain imaging methods to study psychiatric dysfunction. He is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Michael Alan Schwartz is an American academic and psychiatrist based in Austin, Texas. In 2018 Schwartz retired as Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Joint Professor of Humanities in Medicine at the Texas A&M School of Medicine. He is currently and Adjunct Professor at this medical school. His work has focused on advancing pluralistic, person and people-centered approaches to psychiatric assessment, care and treatment.
Prof. Robert Haim Belmaker, is an Israeli psychiatrist who has had major academic positions in Israeli psychiatry since 1974. He had a formative influence on biological directions in Israeli psychiatry. He was Hoffer-Vickar Professor of Psychiatry at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva Israel until his retirement and is now Emeritus.
Constantine G. Lyketsos, is the Elizabeth Plank Althouse Professor in Alzheimer's Disease Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States. He is the founding director of the Richman Family Precision Medicine Center of Excellence in Alzheimer's Disease, and an associate director of the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC).
