When you hear about psychiatrists, you might have little idea of exactly who they are.
What is a psychiatrist, really? What do they do? Psychiatrists are medical experts specializing in the treatment of mental disorders such as anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and others.
They have undergone extensive medical education and training before they are eligible to practice their profession.
They do several interventions for clients that focus mostly on medication and talk therapy.
The following paragraphs will explain further what a psychiatrist does.
Because psychiatrists specialize in treating mental disorders, it is natural that they have a doctorate degree.
They are unique from other physicians because of the interventions they do for their clients.
Doctors of medicine treat their clients based from a set of principles they learned while they are studying.
This means that the same diseases have the same treatments, provided that they are not rare cases.
Psychiatrists slightly deviate from this norm, however.
They use theories developed by neurologists and other psychiatrists to aid their treatment.
That is why psychiatrists have different approaches to mental disorders.
You might find one psychiatrists methods differ from the other.
Although this may be the case, the goal of these therapies remains the same: to change the patients' way of thinking.
Psychiatrists are also responsible in prescribing, adjusting, discontinuing psychiatric medications.
Psych drugs are challenging to handle because of a number of reasons.
They take some time before they exert their effect, which calls the need for constant monitoring.
Also, these medications carry a lot of side effects that can be irreversible when not treated promptly.
That is why psychiatrists do frequent assessments of their patients to ensure their safety.
These two major functions of psychiatrists must be used in combination to make the treatment faster and more effective.
This requires collaboration between the patient and the psychiatrist.
This component of psychiatry makes it stand out from other practices of medicine.
A sense of trust must be developed between the patient and the physician before he can start treating the disorder.
This cannot be seen in a hospital setting because nurses and social workers commonly do this task.
The doctors are mostly responsible for diagnosing the diseases and ordering the proper interventions.
Psychiatrists, on the other hand, are responsible for treating the client while keeping them comfortable.
Psychiatrists are not also limited to a clinical setting.
They can expand their horizons, and their profession can be applied to different areas.
For example, a psychiatrist's services can be useful in criminal cases, when the subject's sound judgment is questionable.
They can also serve as profilers in criminal investigations, to help the investigating body understand the criminals' way of thinking.