Definition
Psychiatry is the medical specialty concerned with assessing, diagnosing, treating and preventing mental, emotional and behavioural disorders, and supporting recovery.
Mental health is more than the absence of illness: it includes the ability to cope with stress, function in daily life and maintain relationships.
A mental disorder involves a clinically significant disturbance in thinking, emotional regulation or behaviour, usually associated with distress or impaired functioning. One symptom alone does not establish a diagnosis.
What psychiatrists do
- Take a psychiatric and medical history.
- Perform a Mental State Examination (MSE).
- Assess safety, including suicide and self-harm risk when indicated.
- Consider physical illness, medicines and substance use that may cause psychiatric symptoms.
- Develop a diagnosis and management plan, which may include medication, psychological therapy, social support and follow-up.
How mental illness is understood
Mental health problems may reflect interacting biological, psychological and social influences. Assess the whole person and their circumstances; do not assume one cause without evidence.
For the detailed model and the 4 Ps, read Biopsychosocial Formulation.
Key clinical principle
Describe what the patient reports and what you observe before deciding what it means. Then consider possible syndromes, differential diagnoses, context and functional impact.
Continue to Introduction to Psychopathology for the terminology used to describe abnormalities of thought, perception, mood, cognition and behaviour.
Quick self-check
- Psychiatry is a medical specialty; psychology focuses on mental processes and behaviour, with professional roles varying by training and jurisdiction.
- A symptom is reported by the patient; a sign is observed or elicited by the clinician.
- A risk factor increases the probability of a disorder but does not guarantee it.
- An unusual behaviour is not automatically a mental disorder: consider context, duration, distress, impairment and possible medical causes.