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Psychiatrist
Medical doctor specializing in mental health — diagnoses and treats mental disorders using therapy and medication.
Did you know?
The word 'psychiatry' was coined in 1808 by German doctor Johann Christian Reil. It means 'medical treatment of the soul'.
How subjects help
- Biology: Check for body problems like thyroid illness that can cause low mood or anxiety.
- Chemistry: Choose a medicine that changes brain chemical signals and watch for side effects.
- Psychology: Talk with a patient to understand their thoughts, fears and patterns of behaviour.
- Neuroscience: Explain how brain cells pass messages and what happens when that signalling goes wrong.
A famous name
Carl Jung: Swiss psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology and introduced the ideas of introverts and extroverts.
Try it yourself: Keep a sleep diary like a sleep scientist
- Rule a page into columns: bedtime, roughly how long it took to fall asleep, times you woke up, wake-up time, and how you felt in the day.
- Keep the diary by your bed and fill it in within an hour of getting up each morning. A good guess is fine.
- Add a short note about anything unusual, such as a late screen, feeling worried or being ill.
- After a week (two if you can), look for patterns, such as which nights you fell asleep fastest.
Sleep scientists and doctors ask patients to keep a two-week sleep diary before deciding what is causing a sleep problem.
Adapted from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust: Keeping a sleep diary.
Also try: Which words does memory keep?.
Known for it in
USA, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, UK