Blog 1 – Demystifying Psychiatry: What is the Human Mind?

 

Nowadays almost everyone in society acts like psychologist. Many people believe that simply taking is the only treatment for mental disorders. While psychotherapy is an effective treatment for many conditions, psychiatry is much massive than that. Each and every mental disorder is unique and require its own assessment and empirical treatment. Through this blog series we are trying to demystify psychiatry.  This blog series is inspired by Demystifying Psychiatry by Charles F. Zorumksi and Eugene H. Rubin. I will share what I understand from the book and relate to the Indian context, especially Tamil Nadu, the southern part of India

Before diving to psychiatry, one major question what is human mind? and where is located? In Tamil and Malayalam especially, they call mind as “Manasu or Manam or Manas” but when you ask where it is located mostly of them touches the heart and says there it is even, I believed it for long time and most cinema shows that. The truth is heart is just an organ like kidney, pancreas, intestine. The work of heart is to pump the blood throughout the body that’s it not anything than it. The brain is the organ responsible for our thoughts, emotions, memories and behaviour. Although philosophers and neuroscientists still debate the exact nature of the mind, modern psychology generally consider the mind arise from the functions of brain.  The question I asked earlier what is human mind? It literally a question many worked a lot and for long time there is no answers and now there are many answers which can’t be calculated.  

In this blog we adapt the definition of the Joseph LeDoux, human mind has three important components

          v       Cognition (Thinking),

          v      Emotions (Meaning) and

          v     Motivation (Goals).

The Common misconception of Psychiatric disorders that are common in south Indian context and might applies to overall world in some cases.

1.     Myth: Psychiatric Illness are not real disease it is just a “problem of living” or escape form reality or commitments!
Buster: Every illness like cancer, diabetes and other major illness is just a problem of living right? People who are affected strive to live do various treatment which gives them a lot of pain but accept it reason is simple to live same applies to psychiatric disorder it is problem of living 

 

2.     Myth: Psychiatric is inexact science, nothing there to prove a single disorder
Buster: Yeah, that was true in 19^th and early 20^th century but since mid and late 19^th century the medical field has grown to the massive level in both research and infrastructure. This myth mainly due to physical illness like diabetes can be identified by blood test, bone fracture can be identified by X ray but the Currently, no single brain scan or blood test can diagnose most mental disorders. Diagnosis depends on a detailed clinical interview, behavioural observation such as mental state examinations and standardized diagnostic criteria, to see what is wrong with our brain functioning and try to rectify it if possible

 

3.      Myth: Even two psychologists/psychiatrist not accept the same diagnosis
Buster: Aboustely yes! In starting there was more diagnostic patterns, ways to find the disorder but after 1960s this completely changes more reliable procedure was find out and all psychologists and psychiatrist uses this. For example, the patient with major depressive disorder or schizophrenia in modern diagnostic systems such as the DSM and ICD have significantly improved agreement among the trained psychiatrists and psychologists although difficult cases may still require further evaluation

 

 

4.      Myth: mental disorders are supernatural, work of evil, bad karma or metaphysical power. Some people believe these conditions are caused by supernatural forces and therefore seek only spiritual treatment not the treatment done by trained psychiatrists and psychologists  
Buster: This is very important and most concerning myth that even persists now in some rural area on South India. The delusions and hallucinations are treat as evil in early 20^th century most mental disorders are treated using ways like exorcism and many lost their lives due to physical and mental torture giving during this process and their death was termed as win of evil and they will be termed as ghost or evil powers their family wont be allowed to be in village even after death sometimes.

       End of blog

                  Thank you for reading. In the next blog, we will explore an important question: what exactly do psychiatrists and psychologists treat? We will also discuss more myths surrounding mental health

       References:

v Zorumksi, C.F., & Rubin, E.H. Demystifying psychiatry.