In the article we will consider the history of psychiatry, its main directions, tasks.
The clinical discipline that deals with the study of the etiology, prevalence, diagnosis, pathogenesis, treatment, examination, prognosis, prevention and rehabilitation of behavioral and mental disorders is psychiatry.
Subject and tasks
It focuses on people's mental he alth.
The tasks of psychiatry are as follows:
- diagnosis of mental disorders;
- study of the course, etiopathogenesis, clinic and outcome of mental diseases;
- analysis of the epidemiology of mental disorders;
- study of the effects of drugs on the pathomorphosis of mental disorders;
- development of methods for the treatment of mental disorders;
- development of methods for the rehabilitation of patients with mental illness;
- development of preventive ways for the development of mental illness in people;
- organizations to help the population in the psychiatric field.
The history of the development of psychiatry as a science will be briefly described below.
History of Science
According to Yu. Kannabih, the following stages are distinguished in the development of psychiatry:
- The pre-scientific period - from ancient times to the emergence of ancient medicine. Observations that are recorded in mythology in figurative form are haphazardly accumulated. People endowed the surrounding phenomena and objects with a soul, which is called animism. Sleep and death were identified by primitive man. He believed that the soul leaves the body in a dream, sees various events, takes part in them, wanders, and all this is reflected in dreams. If the soul of a person left and never returned, then the person died.
- Ancient Greco-Roman medicine (7th century BC - 3rd century AD). Mental illnesses are considered as natural phenomena that require appropriate action. The religious-magical understanding of pathologies has been replaced by a metaphysical and, to some extent, scientific-realistic one. Somatocentrism becomes predominant. On its basis, Hippocrates considered hysteria the result of pathologies of the uterus, melancholy (depression) - bile stasis.
- Middle Ages - the decline of human thought, scholasticism and mysticism. Practical medicine returns to mystical-religious and animistic approaches. At that time, demonic notions of mental illness were winning.
- Renaissance - scientific thought is flourishing, and with it the history of psychiatry is developing.
- Second half of the 9th c. - 1890. At this time, the clinical direction of psychiatry is intensively developing. Systematization in progressof all clinical observations, symptomatic psychiatry is developing, symptomatic complexes are described.
- The end of the 19th century (the last ten years) is the nosological stage in the development of science. At present, the history of psychiatry has stopped moving at this point.
The boundaries of a number of nosological psychiatric forms are constantly being revised as knowledge is accumulated, to the present day, while most diseases are classified not by etiological characteristics.
Let's look at the main areas of psychiatry.
Nosological direction
Its founder is Krepellin, who believed that any individual disease - a nosological unit - must meet the following criteria: the same symptoms, one cause, outcome, course, anatomical changes. His followers, Korsakov and Kandinsky, sought to make a descriptive classification of psychoses, and Bayle singled out progressive paralysis. The descriptive method is leading.
Syndromic and eclectic directions
In the syndromological direction, mental illnesses are classified on the basis of psychopathological syndromes (depression, delirium).
Eclectic (atheoretical, pragmatic) direction became especially widespread at the end of the 20th century. Its theoretical basis is constructed in such a way as to reflect the opinions of representatives of various directions and numerous schools of psychiatry. The disorder is distinguished according to the nosological principle, if itthe cause is known, for example, alcoholism, drug addiction, senile dementia. If the cause is unclear, and the characteristic organic transformations in the central nervous system are not established, then they turn to the syndromological or psychoanalytic direction.
Psychoanalytic direction
The psychoanalytic direction is associated with the name of Z. Freud, who put forward the concept of a psychodynamic approach to the study of human behavior, which is based on the position that psychological unconscious conflicts (mainly of a sexual nature) control behavior. The scientist believed that personality development coincides with childhood psychosexual development. He proposed a psychoanalytic method for the treatment of neurotic disorders. Followers - A. Freud, M. Klein, E. Erickson, Jung, Adler, etc.
Antipsychiatric direction
Its founder is R. Laing. This movement is responsible for the elimination of psychiatric institutions as a way of social coercion of people who think differently. The main theses are the following: society itself is insane, suppresses the desire to go beyond the ordinary ways of perception and thinking. Laing's interpretation of psychopathology was carried out in the context of a change in human being. He believed that schizophrenia is a special strategy, the individual resorts to it to adapt to an unfavorable situation in life. Other representatives of the direction: F. Basaglio, D. Cooper.
Psychiatric Care Act
The current law on psychiatry aimsto create guarantees for the protection of the interests and rights of persons who suffer from mental disorders. This category of citizens is the most vulnerable and needs special attention to their needs from the state.
2.07.1992 The federal law "On psychiatric care and guarantees of the rights of citizens in its provision" No. 3185-1 came into force. This bill establishes a list of economic and organizational norms that control the provision of mental he alth care to people whose mental state requires medical intervention.
Content of law
The law contains six sections and fifty articles. They describe:
- general provisions about patients' rights, mental he alth expertise, rules of care, etc.;
- government support and mental he alth care;
- doctors and medical institutions who treat patients, their terms of reference and rights;
- types of psychiatric care provided and the procedure for their implementation;
- challenging various actions of medical staff and medical institutions that provide such support;
- control by the prosecutor's office and the state over this procedure.
World famous psychiatrists
- Sigmund Freud - was able to explain human behavior in terms of psychology for the first time. The scientist's findings created the first large-scale theory of personality in science, which was based not on speculative conclusions, but on observation.
- Carl Jung - his analyticalpsychology gained more followers among religious figures and philosophers than among medical psychiatrists. The teleological approach operates to the fact that a person should not be bound by his own past.
- Erich Fromm is a philosopher, sociologist, psychoanalyst, social psychologist, one of the founders of Freudo-Marxism and Neo-Freudianism. His humanistic psychoanalysis is a treatment aimed at revealing the human individuality.
- Abraham Maslow is a famous American psychologist who founded humanistic psychology. He was one of the first to explore the positive aspects of human behavior.
- B. M. Bekhterev is a well-known psychiatrist, psychologist, neurologist, founder of a scientific school. He created fundamental works on the pathology, physiology and anatomy of the nervous system, work on the behavior of a child at an early age, sex education and social psychology. He studied personality based on a complex analysis of the brain by psychological, anatomical and physiological methods. He also founded reflexology.
- I. P. Pavlov - is one of the most respected Russian scientists, psychologist, physiologist, creator of ideas about the processes of digestive regulation and the science of higher nervous activity; founder of the largest physiological school in Russia, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904.
- I. M. Sechenov is a Russian physiologist who created the first physiological school in Russia, the founder of a new psychology and the doctrine of mental regulation of behavior.
Books
Some popular books on psychiatry and psychology will be listed below.
- I. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy. The book is dedicated to special existential givens, their place in psychotherapy and human life.
- K. Naranjo "Character and neurosis". Nine personality types are described, and the most subtle aspects of internal dynamics are revealed.
- S. Grof "Beyond the Brain". The author gives a description of the expanded mental cartography, which includes not only the biographical level of Z. Freud, but also the perinatal (perinatal) and transpersonal levels.
What other books on psychiatry are known?
- N. McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnostics. In addition to detailed characteristics, the book includes specific recommendations for working with clients, including for difficult cases.
- K. G. Jung "Memories, dreams, reflections." An autobiography, but it's unusual. Focuses on the events of inner life and the stages of knowing one's unconscious.
We reviewed the history of psychiatry, its main directions, famous scientists and useful literature on the topic.
