Psychiatrist
Why would anyone want to be a Psychiatrist? Many people are afraid of the mentally ill because they think they are dangerous, but I find them very interesting. I want to learn more about their minds and how they function. I want people to understand that they are normal human beings just like anybody else. I’ve always been interested in mental disorders and how they’ve come to be. Being a Psychiatrist would be the perfect career for me.
The career of Psychiatry is an interesting career because of how extensive the aspects of the mind are. This research will describe the career of Psychiatry, what is required to become a successful Psychiatrist, and the impact this career has on society.
In 5th century BCE, the Greeks and the Romans believed mental disorders were supernatural. The Greeks also created manuals about mental disorders and how they were caused supernaturally. In 4th century BCE, Hippocrates theorized that psychological abnormalities were the root of mental disorders. The beginning of psychiatry as a medical practice started in the middle of the 19th century.
To treat mental disorders, religious leaders turned to exorcism, often using cruel and barbaric methods. Psychiatric hospitals were built in Europe in the 13th century to treat people suffering from mental disorders. However, they were utilized as “lunatic wards: and didn’t provide any type of treatment. Some wards treated their patients with extreme cruelty. Mutilation, beatings, and electric shock were only a few ways of “treatment” used on suffering patients.
This inhumane way of treatment went on until 1788 when George III was found to be suffering from a mental disorder. After his remission in 1789, men...
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...geons : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2013. .
"Salary Finder." CareerOneStop Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2013. . Average annual salaries for psychiatrists.
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Leupo, Kimberly. "The History of Mental Illness." The History of Mental Illness. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Modern psychiatric hospitals evolved from, and eventually replaced the older lunatic asylums. The treatment of inmates in early lunatic asylums was sometimes brutal and focused on containment and restraint with successive waves of reform, and the introduction of effective evidence-based treatments, modern psychiatric hospitals provide a primary emphasis on treatment, and attempt where possible to help patients control their own lives in the outside world, with the use of a combination of psychiatric drugs and
The traditional approach to the care of the mentally ill during the last 200 years was custodial, rather than therapeutic. This approach to “Psychiatric Care Delivery System” was introduced in India from Britain . Mental hospitals were established in isolated areas, often on the outskirts with the object of segregating the patient as troublesome and dangerous to their neighbors. The overriding concern was to protect the citizens without regard for appropriate care and cure of the ailing patients. As a consequence of this objective of the mental hospitals, the quality of care in such hospitals had been very poor. The inmates were subjected to indignity and humiliation for an indefinite period, and once admitted never recovered, or rehabilitated back in their family, but doomed to the inevitable end. The stigma of mental illness thus prevailed.
Before Kirkbride's standardized methods for mental hospitals, those with mental illness suffered crude and inhuman treatment. Beginning in Colonial America society, people suffering from mental illness were referred to as lunatics. Colonists viewed lunatics as being possessed by the devil, and usually were removed from societ...
Moral treatment is a treatment that uses “psychological methods” to treat mental diseases (Packet Two, 26). In general, moral treatment was a relatively benevolent and humane approach to treat mental disorders. Before the introduction of moral treatment, insane people were regarded by the general public as wild animals whose brains were physically impaired and usually incurable (Packet One, 11). Therefore, regardless of patients’ specific symptoms, physicians generally labeled patients as lunatics and treated them with the same method (Packet One, 11). Because of the perceived impossibility of curing mental illness, physicians put far greater emphasis on restraining patients’ potential danger behaviors than striving to bring them back to sanity. Cruel methods such as bloodletting were widely used, but their effectiveness was really poor. Moral treatment was a response to this ineffective and brutal traditional treatment. The advocates of moral treatment insisted that mental diseases were curable. By providing a friendly environment that contributed to reviving, moral treatment could help patients to...
Up to the 1600s, people with psychotic disorders were sent off in "ships of fools", locked in cages, "flogged into reason", or killed. The care for the insane at this time was the responsibility of nuns and monks (Noll, xviii).
The human brain is a vast, unexplainable, and unpredictable organ. This is the way that many modern physicians view the mind. Imagine what physicians three hundred years ago understood about the way their patients thought. The treatment of the mentally ill in the eighteenth century was appalling. The understanding of mental illness was very small, but the animalistic treatment of patients was disgusting. William Hogarth depicts Bethlam, the largest mental illness hospital in Britain, in his 1733 painting The Madhouse1. The public’s view of mental illness was very poor and many people underestimated how mentally ill some patients were. The public and the doctors’ view on insanity was changing constantly, making it difficult to treat those who were hospitalized2. “Madhouses” became a dumping ground for people in society that could not be handled by the criminal justice system. People who refused to work, single mothers, and children who refused to follow orders were being sent to mental illness hospitals3. A lack of understanding was the main reason for the ineptness of the health system to deal with the mentally ill, but the treatment of the patients was cruel and inhumane. The British’s handling of mentally ill patients was in disarray.
What comes to mind when you hear the words “insane asylum”? Do such terms as lunatic, crazy, scary, or even haunted come to mind? More than likely these are the terminology that most of us would use to describe our perception of insane asylums. However, those in history that had a heart’s desire to treat the mentally ill compassionately and humanely had a different viewpoint. Insane asylums were known for their horrendous treatment of the mentally ill, but the ultimate purpose in the reformation of insane asylums in the nineteenth century was to improve the treatment for the mentally ill by providing a humane and caring environment for them to reside.
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
In the real world deciding on what you want to do for the rest of your life can be scary and most certainly confusing. There are over thousands of different careers and lifestyles that could suit you. How do you know if you have chosen the right one? The idea of patients with mental disorders being kept in institutions did not become popular until the 17th century (“Psychiatric Nurses” Volume 5 150). A career such as Psychiatric Nurse Partitioning has its pros and cons, but the journey to becoming one is something that will miraculously change your life.
"Mental Health." New Internationalist 452 (2012): 18. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.
From education, the idea on creating a test to identified ones intelligent quotient (IQ) was first created for school systems to identify those who may need assistants in school. Now, the IQ is used to diagnose learning disabilities, cognitive impairments and used to understand how to better counsel certain individuals. Also, the idea of a higher structured day in therapeutic setting (hospital, camp, teen-addiction facility, etc.) came from psychoeducational therapy to keep consistency and also keep the patients busy. This idea was drawn from education and medicine in inmate clinics. Also, there are many things that over lap with medicine and counseling. Furthermore, the idea of vocational guidance came from school setting where social workers and/or school counselors would help students in finding their career choice. A vast amount of normal human development came from studies in medicine and psychology, which in turn has helped in creating many behavioral therapies for counselors. Many individuals, who in todays society, would be diagnosed with any type of disorder were diagnosed and treated by doctors. Not until the 1970s when drug treatment and surgeries started to become popular, did the popularity of psychiatrists
Why would anyone in this world want to become a psychiatrist? To me I think
Szasz, Thomas. Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 2007. Print. Braslow, Joel T. Mental Ills and Bodily Cures: Psychiatric Treatment in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. California: University of California, 1997. Print.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors that specialize in treatment of mental disorders. They are primary mental health-care givers. They diagnose and treat mental illnesses through a combination of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, institutionalization, and medication. Psychiatrists help their patients find solutions to their problems through changes in their behavioral patterns, exploring past experiences, etc.