Who Is a Psychiatrist?
About Psychiatrists
Psychiatrists are medical doctors who specialize in the treatment of mental health, psychiatric, and substance abuse conditions. They are specialists who diagnose and treat patients who experience mental illnesses. They have the ability to guide patients about the connection between physical health and mental health and their effects on each other. They treat several mental health illnesses, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and bipolar disorders.
Psychiatrists analyze the symptoms of mental illnesses, diagnose, and proceed accordingly. They recommend therapies, management plans, and treatments according to the severity of mental illness. They provide care using education, medications, and therapy procedures, including electroconvulsive therapy and rTMS.
What Do They Do?
Psychiatrists treat mental and emotional health conditions of all kinds and severities. They advise on healthy lifestyles, recommend medicines, and suggest urgent care if needed. In the field of psychiatry, safety is paramount! They talk to your partners or relatives to let them know about your condition and how to help you control the symptoms by supporting you and making the burden lighter.
Psychiatrists do not recommend the same treatment for every patient with mental health illness. Every person requires unique therapies and treatments. They guide you through the most challenging situations, including suicidal thoughts and concerns. Those who feel depressed, anxious, unable to sleep, disorganized, panicked, emotionally unstable, or have hallucinations need to see a psychiatrist. They help you with delusions, hyperactivity, insomnia, disjointed or cloudy thoughts, concentration and memory problems, and many more mental health issues.
Treatments Provided By Psychiatrists
Psychiatrists adopt a wide variety of treatments, including medications (e.g. Antidepressants, anxiolytics, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, etc), psychosocial interventions, several forms of psychotherapy (e.g. Cognitive behavioral therapy – CBT, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing – EMDR, dialectical behavioral therapy – DBT, etc), and other treatments including electroconvulsive therapy – ECT based on the individual’s condition.
Psychotherapy
Psychological therapies can help a patient to recover from or cope with mental illnesses and maintain their mental health and wellness. Psychiatrists play a vital role here as they listen, identify, and deal with the underlying causes of patients’ problems. In psychotherapy, psychiatrists are often able to spot the events and situations that may have impacted the individual’s condition, even if the patient doesn’t realize them. It is necessary to acknowledge the sad moment in order to work one’s way through the associated feelings.
Psychiatrists help their patients to set realistic goals and implement interventions towards achieving them. They observe distorted thought processes in their patients and help correct them, and they help patients to develop skills to cope with or overcome their unpleasant feelings. Although there are several therapy modalities, the most common is CBT, also sometimes called “talk therapy.”
Medication Management
Psychiatrists use the medications to help their patients just like medications are used for physical healthcare. They identify the problem areas and prescribe medications according to the patient’s presentation. Most medications help by adjusting chemical levels in the brain. Psychiatric medications include antidepressants and anxiolytics (anti-anxiety medications), most of which help with depression, anxiety, panic, OCD, PTSD, and many other disorders.
There are also antipsychotic medications, which are used to treat hallucinations, delusions, and schizophrenia, and mood stabilizers, which are used for the treatment of bipolar disorder and related conditions. Psychiatrists may give you sedatives or hypnotics if you have anxiety issues or insomnia and stimulants for inattention, and they advise you on how to use them.
Where Do Psychiatrists Work?
Psychiatrists work in a wide range of settings. Those in clinical practice either work in outpatient settings or inpatient settings. Psychiatrists perform their duties in clinics, private practices, general and psychiatric hospitals, community agencies, university medical centers, prisons and courts, long term care facilities such as nursing homes, military establishments, rehabilitation programs, government institutions, industrial settings, emergency rooms or crisis centers, and many more places. In addition, many psychiatrists offer their services remotely via telepsychiatry (video chat). Always remember that psychiatrists are there to help individuals suffering from mental illnesses, and their families, no matter wherever they are.
The author of this article, Dr. Joy Kwakuyi, DNP, PMHNP-BC, is a mental health and personal development, expert. He is a board-certified psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner and the Founder & Director of Faith Integrated Psychiatry, a private practice that provides diagnostic psychiatric evaluation, medication management, psychotherapy, and Christian counseling to individuals in-person or via telemedicine (video chat). For a free phone consultation or to request for an appointment, please contact Dr. Joy at https://provider.kareo.com/joy-kwakuyi#?view=booking#booking
