Psychiatrist

Psychiatry specializes in the study of the origin and course of abnormal processes and phenomena in the human psyche, and a psychiatrist is a doctor who diagnoses, treats and prevents mental health abnormalities in patients. In the literal sense, the word “psychiatrist” has the translation “healer of the soul”, which characterizes this profession in the best possible way.

The essence of the work of a psychiatrist

The main recognized criterion according to which a mental disorder is imputed to a patient is the occurrence of morbidity of the soul, which can be expressed in the thoughts, feelings and will of a person. This is a very thin line that everyone can sometimes cross, which is why it is important to understand and feel the need to contact specialists in time.

A psychiatrist must necessarily understand the specifics of psychology and neurology related to psychiatry. At the same time, a neurologist deals with the treatment of disorders of the central nervous system, and a psychologist helps his patients to understand the emerging life troubles without drug therapy.

Psychotherapists may occasionally use mild sedative medication in their practice, but their area of ​​expertise does not include standard drug therapy.

But a psychiatrist, on the contrary, should be able to apply various specialized methods for eliminating mental deviations in his own practice, combining complex treatment with various special medications.

Improving the mental health of a person is a very delicate, jewelry work that requires a high level of professional training, human participation and the ability to empathize with one’s own patients.

If there is the slightest suspicion of a change in the stable picture of the psyche, a person urgently needs to consult a psychiatrist, who will help to establish all the existing problems of the person during the preliminary appointment and offer to undergo additional examinations or tests to clarify the picture of the course of the disease.

Reasons for visiting a psychiatrist

Both sick and healthy people can come to a psychiatrist for a consultation. In each case, the psychiatrist, first of all, assesses the viability of the human psyche for later life, and only after that can help him solve the patient’s concerns. For the effectiveness of treatment, psychiatrists often involve other doctors, such as therapists or nutritionists, for example.

An important social function of psychiatrists is to determine the danger of a person to their own health and life, or to the health of other people. If there are signs of danger, the patient must be urgently hospitalized in order to isolate from the outside world and establish observation of his reactions and actions in relation to himself. In the absence of danger from the patient to the outside world, his treatment can be performed on an outpatient basis. Most often, along with therapeutic methods, psychiatrists also use special drugs.

The main reasons for consulting a psychiatrist can be:

• sharp mood swings that can be observed in a patient over a long period of time;
• suicidal tendencies – talking, thinking, or physically attempting to commit suicide;
• emerging bouts of paranoid behavior;
• the occurrence of hallucinations;
• long interruptions in sleep – insomnia;
• various anxiety states for no particular reason and other similar signs.

The psychiatrist diagnoses the mental health deviations present in the anamnesis, prescribes the correct therapy and the regularity of subsequent visits. At the same time, treatment by psychiatrists is confidential, in which all data received from the patient during diagnosis and therapy, psychiatrists guarantee not to disclose.

What diseases does a psychiatrist work with?

The first step towards the cure of diseases of the soul is the study by a psychiatrist of the mechanisms of the occurrence of one or another deviation in the psyche of a particular person, the diagnosis of the disease and the appointment of appropriate treatment.

Psychiatrists can consult both sick and healthy patients, and the process of mental health examination in determining the capacity or level of mental instability is also within their competence.

All psychiatry is divided into several areas, in each of which doctors work, more often than others dealing with specific mental specifics of human health: organizational, age-related, forensic psychiatry, narcology, psychopharmacology, social psychiatry.

It is impossible to name all the diseases that a psychiatrist can cure, since their list is very long, and it is constantly expanding with emerging new forms of psychiatric anomalies. In addition to the above reasons for contacting psychiatrists, there are several more classic psychiatric diseases that are within the competence of this medical specialist:

• epilepsy;
• Alzheimer’s disease;
• delirium tremens;
• phobias of a different nature, severe depression;
• groundless prolonged psychosis, frequent hysterical seizures, schizophrenic states;
• mental disorders arising in post-traumatic syndrome;
• various forms of irresistible addictions (alcoholism, for example);
• bulimia and anorexia.

Only a good psychiatrist can put an end to the final diagnosis of people suffering from the above and many other diseases, all subsequent treatment with medication and therapeutic agents must be coordinated with him.

Diagnostic methods and analyzes

When contacting a psychiatrist, the patient will need to undergo some research so that the specialist can correctly diagnose and prescribe treatment appropriate to the state of health.

The main types of tests in psychiatric treatment experts include:

• tests that determine the state of the thyroid gland: the presence of antibodies to peroxidase and thyroglobulin, the level of thyroid-stimulating hormone, free thyroxin, free triiodothyronine, thyroglobulin;
• analysis of the detailed formula of pituitary hormones: prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, thyroid-stimulating hormone, somatotropin;
• analysis of adrenal hormones: androstenedione, adrenaline, cortisol, aldosterone, norepinephrine, metanephrine.

Often, to clarify the details of the diagnosis, psychiatrists also use neurophysiological studies, such as encephalography, angiogram of cerebral vessels, magnetic resonance imaging, and others. In addition to material changes in brain activity, psychiatrists in their work attach great importance to the state of mind of their patients. That is why the clinical diagnosis of psychiatric diseases is the most common and effective method in the work of psychiatrists.

The clinical diagnostic method in psychiatry is to interview the patient and observe changes in his mental states during this conversation. These changes perfectly characterize the occurrence, course and symptoms of mental illness. During this conversation, the psychiatrist pays attention to the patient’s mimic changes, intonations with which he says certain things, the person’s reaction to an attempt to establish contact with him.

Sometimes, to diagnose a disease in psychiatry, a group discussion of the signs of the disease seen by a group of doctors at a consultation is used.

The essence of the clinical method for diagnosing psychiatric disorders is to interview the patient and his relatives. The survey of each person is conducted individually in order to understand how honest each of the interviewees is, and to exclude any influence on what was said during the conversation. The first part of the survey contains general introductory questions about age, marital status, and so on. Based on the complaints received, the psychiatrist during the interview process can identify the emerging disease. At the same time, he is obliged to very gently manage the existing conversation, so as not to cause isolation or hostility of the interlocutor.

When questioned, the doctor pursues the following goals: he reveals the attitude of the patient himself to his own disease, clarifies what, in the patient’s opinion, provoked the onset of his illness, determines the syndromes and symptoms of a mental disorder, finds out the characteristics of the patient’s personality, identifies the nature of the course of the disease, its features and attitude patient for future treatment. When interviewing relatives of the patient, the psychiatrist can clarify for himself their vision of the time of the onset of the disease, determine what the patient himself can hide from him, what are the true causes of the onset of the disease, visible from the outside, how close relatives treat the patient and whether they are determined to help him in treatment.

Patient observation. The psychiatrist observes the patient to determine his degree of susceptibility to the alleged illness. At the same time, gestures, facial expressions, actions, intonations, reactions to all kinds of events are important. Also, the doctor can easily identify the differences between how a person presents himself in the description, and how he really is. The purpose of this observation is to identify topics and issues that acutely affect and interest the patient, determine his ability to take care of himself independently, identify and analyze his daily actions and interaction with society.

At the same time, it is important to understand that the correctness of the diagnosis and, as a result, the effectiveness of psychiatric therapy will largely depend on the diagnostic methodology.

Psychiatrist’s recommendations

To maintain your own mental balance, according to psychiatrists, it is possible if you observe sleep hygiene. Long-term disorders of sleep and wakefulness patterns contribute to the emergence of somatic diseases, including psychiatric ones. To completely relax, prevent overwork and improve the quality of sleep, you must follow simple rules.

You can’t watch TV before going to bed, you must completely exclude any emotional stress, while the bed is recommended to be used exclusively for sleep and marital duties, and all other things need to be done outside the bed, otherwise it will cease to be associated with relaxation and sleep will be confused. The bedroom should not have any irritants, including bright lights or high noise levels. In order not to stimulate the nervous system and prevent insomnia, you should not eat or drink liquids a couple of hours before bedtime.

In the daytime, you can sleep for no more than 25 minutes, and on the eve of sleep you can not smoke, because nicotine is a stimulant of the central nervous system, which leads to confused sleep and insomnia.

It is allowed to take drugs and drinks with caffeine no later than 6 hours before bedtime, since tea, coffee and some medications containing this substance also provoke the central nervous system and disrupt sleep. Alcohol before bedtime is the most common cause of nightmares, interrupted sleep, since the process of alcohol breakdown and its removal from the body will occur exactly at the time when the body should completely rest. According to psychiatrists, it is sound and healthy sleep that can provide a person with full-fledged mental health, stability of the nervous system and protect everyone from nervous strain and mental problems.