What Is Psychiatry?
•Psychiatry is the branch of medicine focused on the diagnosis, treatment
and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders.
• A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in mental health,
including substance use disorders. Psychiatrists are qualified to assess
both the mental and physical aspects of psychological problems.
• People seek psychiatric help for many reasons. The problems can be
sudden, such as a panic attack, frightening hallucinations, thoughts of
suicide, or hearing "voices." Or they may be more long-term, such as
feelings of sadness, hopelessness, or anxiousness that never seem to lift
or problems functioning, causing everyday life to feel distorted or out of
control.
• Psychiatrists use a variety of treatments – including various forms of
psychotherapy, medications, psychosocial interventions and other
treatments (such as electroconvulsive therapy or ECT), depending on the
needs of each patient.
3.
Terminology
• Neurosis: Formername of a class of mental disorders characterized
by anxiety and avoidance behavior, with symptoms distressing to
the patient, intact reality testing, no violation of social norms, and
no apparent organic etiology.
• Psychosis: Impaired reality testing (means that patient is unable to
distinguish personal subjective experience from the reality of the
external world). They experience hallucinations and/or delusions.
• Psychosis is a one of the criteria to diagnose schizophrenia and
related disorder, but it also can occur in mood disorders, substance
use disorders and cognitive disorders (delirium and dementia).
• Insight: The patient’s awareness and understanding of the origins
and meaning of his attitudes, feelings, and behavior and of his
disturbing symptoms; self-understanding. It can be lost, partial, or
intact.
4.
• Disorders ofperception: illusions and hallucinations.
• Illusions are defined as misperception of real external
sensory stimuli. If occur in delirium (=confusion). E.g.:
elderly patient, at night, in the intensive care unit sees the
wires attached to his chest to take ECG as snakes. The
treatment is to reassure the patient and open the lights at
night. Illusion can occur in normal people.
• Hallucinations are false sensory perception not associated
with real external stimulus. Hallucinations could occur in
schizophrenia, substance use disorders bipolar disorder,
and major depressive disorder with psychotic feature in
which they are usually auditory hallucinations.
5.
• Visual hallucinationsoccurs more in organic
cases (brain tumor, wilson's disease, Lewy-Body
dementia, etc...). Olfactory hallucinations occur in
partial complex epilepsy (e.g.: smelling burning
rubber in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE)).
Hallucinations can be test
• gustatory and somatic. An example of somatic
hallucinations is the feeling that there are worms
or bugs on the skin of the patient (occur in
cocaine withdrawal and called cocaine bug).
6.
• Disorders ofthought: it can be disorder of content, or form, or
stream of thought.
• Disorders of thought Content: these include delusions, obsessions,
and overvalued ideas. We can add here also suicidal thoughts and
homicidal thoughts.
• Delusions are false beliefs, based on incorrect conclusion about
external reality, not consistent with patient's culture. Delusions do
not occur in normal people. There are different types of delusions
for different types of mental illnesses:
• bizzare delusion: an impossible strange belief(e.g.: invaders from
the space have implanted electrodes into my brain). This occurs
usually in schizophrenia.
7.
• Paranoid delusions:includes persecutory delusions, delusions of
reference , and grandiose delusions.
• In persecutory delusions the patient believes that there is a plan to
hurt him (e.g. poisons put in food, police try to kill him etc..).
• In delusions of reference the patients believe that people are
watching or following him, or refer to him (e.g. people in the TV or
radio are talking about the patient).
• In grandiose delusions the patient exaggerates his importance,
power, or identity.
• Paranoid delusions usually occur in schizophrenia (paranoid
subtype), or delusional disorder, but also can occur in other
disorders like grandiose delusions in bipolar disorder (in manic
episodes). Grandiose delusion in a manic episode is mood-
congruent .
8.
• Nihilistic delusion:false feeling that self, others, or the world is
nonexistent or coming to an end. Nihilistic delusion in major depressive
disorder with psychotic features is mood-congruent.
• Delusion of infidelity (delusional jealousy): false belief derived from
pathological jealousy about a person's partner being unfaithful. Occur in
delusional disorder and schizophrenia. This delusion is dangerous and lead
sometimes to violence. Geographical separation is sometimes advised.
• Erotomania: delusional belief, more common in women than in men, that
someone is deeply in love with them. Occur in delusional disorder,
schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
• • Delusion of guilt: false feeling of guilt. This is a mood-congruent
delusion when occur in major depressive disorder with psychotic features.
• Delusions of control: false feeling that a person's will, thought, or feelings
are being controlled by external forces and include: thought withdrawal,
thought insertion, and thought broadcasting. Occur usually in
schizophrenia.
9.
• Under theterm "Thought Content" we can also put: suicidal ideas, and
homicidal ideas, as these two ideas are dangerous and we must ask about
them when the patient seems to have risk of them: e.g. risk of suicide in
depression, and risk of homicide in morbid jealousy.
• Disorder of form of thought (also called Formal Thought Disorders)
appears in the patient's speech and the most important type is called:
loosening of association, in which there is a lack of meaningful connection
between sequential ideas.
• Disorders of stream or speed of thoughts include mainly what is called as:
"Pressure of thought" which is the subjective experience of one's thoughts
occurring rapidly, each thought being associated with a wider range of
consequent ideas than normal and with inability to remain on one idea for
any length of time. Usually Occur in manic illness. And the speech is called
"pressured (or pressure of speech)".
10.
• Mood: sustainedemotional state reported by the
patient (subjective ).
• Affect: emotional state reported by observer (doctor ).
• Disorders of mood: it can be normal or depressed or
euphoric. Depressed in depression and euphoric (or
called elated) in mania. Sometimes there is what is
called as restricted, or blunted affect, which means a
reduction in the intensity of emotions and it occurs in
schizophrenia and in depression. In severe forms of
blunted affect, the affect is called flat "flat affect". The
affect is also can be described as appropriate, or
inappropriate.
11.
• Other commonsigns and symptoms:
• Psychomotor retardation: this is characterized by
slowing of thought and activity. This occurs in
depression and is one of the criteria of it.
• Psychomotor agitation: characterized by a
dysphoric restlessness of speech and motor
behavior. This is also a criterion of depression.
• Stereotypies: repeated, purposeless, and
sometimes bizarre movements. It occurs in
schizophrenia, mental retardation, and in autism.
12.
• Catatonic symptoms:catatonia is defined as an
increase in resting muscle tone to distinguish it from
rigidity. One of the catatonic symptoms is posturing
which is characterised by taking a posture (sometimes
bizarre posture) and maintaining it for minutes. It
occurs In schizophrenia and in depression. Another
catatonic feature is negativism which is resistance to
requests and commands. And this occurs in chronic
schizophrenia. Some catatonic patients are totally
immobile "stupor" and this occurs in schizophrenia and
depression. All catatonic features respond well to
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
13.
History and MetalStatus Examination
(MSE):
• History:
• 1. Name, age, and marital status. Current occupation. Route of
referral.
• 2. Chief complaints
• 3. History of presenting complaints
• 4. Past psychiatric and medical history
• 5. Drug history
• 6. Family history
• 7. Personal history: Birth, Childhood, School, Work, Marriage.
• 8. Forensic Hx.
• 9. Social background information
• 10. Premorbid personality