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psychiatry
medicine
- Related Topics:
- mental disorder
- psychology
- child psychiatry
- ethnopsychiatry
- psychiatric treatment
psychiatry, the science and practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing mental disorders. The term psychiatry is derived from the Greek words psyche, meaning “mind” or “soul,” and iatreia, meaning “healing.” Until the 18th century, mental illness was most often seen as demonic possession, but it gradually came to be considered as a sickness requiring treatment. Many judge that modern psychiatry was born with the efforts of French physician Philippe Pinel in the late 1700s. His contemporary in the United States, statesman and physician Benjamin Rush, introduced a comparable approach. Perhaps the most significant contributions to the field occurred in the ...(100 of 671 words)