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Rights and responsibilities of thepsychiatric profession
Author(s) -
Höschl C,
Libiger J
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.0902-4441.2000.007s020[dash]9.x
Subject(s) - guard (computer science) , mental illness , psychopathology , psychology , psychiatry , medical profession , forensic psychiatry , criminology , medicine , mental health , medical education , computer science , programming language
Psychiatry as a medical discipline relies on the authority of medicine that is associated with the help to a suffering and deserving individual. If this source of authority is obscured, the discipline will be blamed for serving as a social tool for controlling undesirable phenomena and practices. Psychiatry as a medical science accumulates knowledge on the relationship of biology and psychopathology. It can provide an explanation of the extent to which mental illness participates in socially undesirable behaviour and phenomena. But it cannot explain undesirable social phenomena as a mental illness of sorts, let alone offer an effective treatment for them. We should carefully guard the boundaries of psychiatry to prevent its abuse in the future.