Portal:Psychiatry

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Psychiatry Portal

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.

Initial psychiatric assessment of a person begins with creating a case history and conducting a mental status examination. Physical examinations, psychological tests, and laboratory tests may be conducted. On occasion, neuroimaging or other 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), published in May 2013, reorganized the categories of disorders and added newer information and insights consistent with current research.

Treatment may include psychotropics (psychiatric medicines) and psychotherapy, and also other modalities such as assertive community treatment, community reinforcement, substance-abuse treatment, and supported employment. Treatment may be delivered on an inpatient or outpatient basis, depending on the severity of functional impairment or risk to the individual or community. Research within psychiatry is conducted on an interdisciplinary basis with other professionals, such as epidemiologists, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, and clinical psychologists. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

In the Soviet Union, a systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent.

During the leadership of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, psychiatry was used as a tool to eliminate political opponents ("dissidents") who openly expressed beliefs that contradicted official dogma. The term "philosophical intoxication" was widely used to diagnose mental disorders in cases where people disagreed with leaders and made them the target of criticism that used the writings by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. Article 58-10 of the Stalin Criminal Code—which as Article 70 had been shifted into the RSFSR Criminal Code of 1962—and Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code along with the system of diagnosing mental illness, developed by academician Andrei Snezhnevsky, created the very preconditions under which non-standard beliefs could easily be transformed into a criminal case, and it, in its turn, into a psychiatric diagnosis. Anti-Soviet political behavior, in particular, being outspoken in opposition to the authorities, demonstrating for reform, writing books were defined in some persons as being simultaneously a criminal act (e.g., violation of Articles 70 or 190-1), a symptom (e.g., "delusion of reformism"), and a diagnosis (e.g., "sluggish schizophrenia"). Within the boundaries of the diagnostic category, the symptoms of pessimism, poor social adaptation and conflict with authorities were themselves sufficient for a formal diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia." (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected image

A human skull mapped according to phrenology (1883), early precursor to modern psychiatry and neuroscience, now considered a pseudoscience

image credit: public domain

More selected images

WikiProjects

	WikiProject Medicine
	WikiProject Psychiatry
	WikiProject Directory

WikiProject
Neuroscience

Selected biography

Wilhelm Reich (/raɪx/; German: [ʀaɪç], 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of psychoanalysts after Sigmund Freud, and one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. He was the author of several influential books, most notably Character Analysis (1933) and The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933). His work on character contributed to the development of Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), and his idea of muscular armour – the expression of the personality in the way the body moves – shaped innovations such as body psychotherapy, Fritz Perls's Gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen's bioenergetic analysis, and Arthur Janov's primal therapy. His writing influenced generations of intellectuals: during the 1968 student uprisings in Paris and Berlin, students scrawled his name on walls and threw copies of The Mass Psychology of Fascism at the police. (Full article...)

More selected biographies

General images

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

Image 1The Art Nouveau-styled Röykkä Hospital, formerly known as Nummela Sanatorium, in Röykkä, Finland (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 2Otto Loewi's work led to the identification of the first neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 3Lord 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)
Image 4Traverse City State Hospital in Traverse City, Michigan, U.S., in operation from 1881 to 1989 (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 5psychiatric medication and an ECT machine, in Berlin Museum of medical history (from History of psychiatry)
Image 6The York Retreat (c.1796) was built by William Tuke, a pioneer of moral treatment for the insane. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 7Dr. 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 8Danvers State Hospital, Danvers, Massachusetts, Kirkbride Complex, c. 1893 (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 9Plan of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, an early public asylum for the mentally ill.
Image 10York Retreat, built in the late 18th century by William Tuke, a pioneer in moral treatment of the mentally ill (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 11Niuvanniemi Hospital in Niuva, Finland (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 12Republican Vilnius Psychiatric Hospital in Naujoji Vilnia, one of the largest health facilities in Lithuania, built in 1902 (from Psychiatric hospital)
Image 13Emil Kraepelin studied and promoted ideas of disease classification for mental disorders. (from History of psychiatry)
Image 14William 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)