Portal:Psychiatry

The Psychiatry Portal

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, mood, emotion, and behavior.

Initial psychiatric assessment begins with taking a case history and conducting a mental status examination. Laboratory tests, physical examinations, and psychological assessments may also be used. On occasion, neuroimaging or neurophysiological studies are performed.

Mental disorders are diagnosed in accordance with diagnostic manuals such as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), edited by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5) was published in May 2013. However, its release coincided with a statement by then-NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) director Thomas Insel noting that the manual lacks validity compared to other medical specialties due to the absence of objective laboratory measures (biomarkers) for diagnosis. (Full article...)

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Self-harm (SH) or deliberate self-harm (DSH) includes self-injury (SI) and self-poisoning and is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions. These terms are used in the more recent literature in an attempt to reach a more neutral terminology. The older literature, especially that which predates the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), almost exclusively refers to self-mutilation. The term self-harm is synonymous with the term self-injury.

The most common form of self-harm is skin-cutting but self-harm also covers a wide range of behaviors including, but not limited to, burning, scratching, banging or hitting body parts, interfering with wound healing (dermatillomania), hair-pulling (trichotillomania) and the ingestion of toxic substances or objects. Behaviours associated with substance abuse and eating disorders are usually not considered self-harm because the resulting tissue damage is ordinarily an unintentional side effect. However, the boundaries are not always clearly defined and in some cases behaviours that usually fall outside the boundaries of self-harm may indeed represent self-harm if performed with explicit intent to cause tissue damage. Although suicide is not the intention of self-harm, the relationship between self-harm and suicide is complex, as self-harming behaviour may be potentially life-threatening. There is also an increased risk of suicide in individuals who self-harm to the extent that self-harm is found in 40–60% of suicides. However, generalising self-harmers to be suicidal is, in the majority of cases, inaccurate. (Full article...)

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Bellevue Hospital front gate, New York City

image credit: Jim.henderson

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Selected biography

Carl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.

The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.

Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, was developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.

Jung saw the human psyche as "by nature religious" and made this religiousness the focus of his explorations. Jung is one of the best known contemporary contributors to dream analysis and symbolization.

Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense. (Full article...)

General images

The following are images from various psychiatry-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Emil Kraepelin studied and promoted ideas of disease classification for mental disorders. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 2The York Retreat (c.1796) was built by William Tuke, a pioneer of moral treatment for the insane. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 3Dr. Philippe Pinel at the Salpêtrière, 1795 by Tony Robert-Fleury. Pinel ordering the removal of chains from patients at the Paris Asylum for insane women. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 4Traverse City State Hospital in Traverse City, Michigan, U.S., in operation from 1881 to 1989 (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 5York Retreat, built in the late 18th century by William Tuke, a pioneer in moral treatment of the mentally ill (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 6Springfield State Hospital, Sykesville, Maryland, Cottage Plan, c. 1896 (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 7Otto Loewi's work led to the identification of the first neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 8William A. F. Browne was an influential reformer of the lunatic asylum in the mid-19th century, and an advocate of the new 'science' of phrenology. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 9psychiatric medication and an ECT machine, in Berlin Museum of medical history (from History of psychiatry)
Image 10Republican Vilnius Psychiatric Hospital in Naujoji Vilnia, one of the largest health facilities in Lithuania, built in 1902 (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 11Plan of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, an early public asylum for the mentally ill.
Image 12The various restraints and apparatuses pictured were utilized within Hanwell Asylum in London to restrain patients. (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 13The Art Nouveau-styled Röykkä Hospital, formerly known as Nummela Sanatorium, in Röykkä, Finland (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 14Danvers State Hospital, Danvers, Massachusetts, Kirkbride Complex, c. 1893 (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 15Lord Shaftesbury, a vigorous campaigner for the reform of lunacy law in England, and the Head of the Lunacy Commission for 40 years. (from History of psychiatry)