Hacker News Reader

Comment by JamesBarney | Hacker News Reader

What is the difference between a psychological and psychiatric problem? I've never seen these terms used in the same context you used them anywhere in medicine.

View on HN

Hallucinations are generally a pyschiatric problem. Being manic/depressive is a pyschiatric problem. Being a jerk isn't. Having a hard time saying saying no isn't. There are gray areas. As a rough approximation, where drugs can help it's psychiatric, where they can't it's psychological.

If they develop a drug that keeps you from being a jerk does it become a psychiatric problem?

If it the jerk state is the result of a chemical/biological problem in the brain then yes.

5-HT1A stimulation results in decreased aggression, increased sociability, and decreased impulsivity. Sounds like a lack of 5-ht1a activity might make you a jerk, and it's stimulation might cure it.

I’m not a psychiatrist, my wife is. I don’t know hat 5-HT1A is or what your point is. The brain is an organ. It’s the only organ that can be harmed by non-physical means. My understanding is that behavior problems resulting from lack of certain “chemicals” or over abundance of them are psychiatric problems. Problems that don’t arise from such brain defects aren’t. When other organs are defective and don’t produce the right stuff to function properly people take drugs in order to function properly. The brain is no different except there are times the damage is not medical. There are gray areas.

5HT1A is a serotonin receptor generally thought to be responsible for the majority of SSRI effects.

Sorry I guess I wasn't very clear. My point is that there are some conditions that are just "medical". Things like parkinsons or ms. You usually see a neurologist for these conditions.

I'm arguing that any behavior a psychiatrist treats, has some neurological component. And many can be treated with therapy or drugs. So seems weird to use two categories where almost everything is falls into both categories

Think "bottom-up/biological" (psychiatric) vs. "top-down/behavioral" (psychological). Many behavioral disorders have components of both, which means that you either need a psychiatrist doing both med management and behavioral work (e.g. therapy) OR a psychiatrist + psychologist working together to address the problem. The second option can be quite a bit cheaper, since the behavioral treatment is usually far more time-intensive, and psychologists' time is generally less expensive.

>"What is the difference between a psychological and psychiatric problem? I've never seen these terms used in the same context you used them anywhere in medicine"

You really ought to stop pushing your uneducated opinions and do more research.

One this is a completely unhelpful comment. Similar to name calling. A much more helpful one would be showing that medical researches clearly divide problems into psychological and psychiatric.

And no one I know in research, or the psychiatrists I know would say there are many problems that fall into one category or the other. The vast majority of problems you'd see a psychiatrist for fall into both camps.

Mood disorders, and anxiety. The two most common categories of disorders are at least partially treatable by both therapy, and medication.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com