Psychiatry is distinct from psychology as it is an area of medicine rather than a field of study. Unlike psychologists, psychiatrists focus almost entirely on physical health. The treatments they prescribe include medication and psychotherapy, both forms of counseling intended to treat patients’ emotional problems. Some people think that psychiatry and psychology are essentially synonymous, however, and that virtually anyone who identifies themselves as a psychologist can also claim to be a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists believe that mental disorders are solely caused by biology; they emphasize the role played by environmental factors such as family history, trauma, and substance abuse. Many psychologists and psychiatrists hold that these factors can lead to an individual developing a mental disorder.
In practice, the difference is more eminent. Many psychiatrists are trained as psychoanalysts or biological psychologists (Freud himself was an Austrian neurologist). Clinical psychologists are also well versed in modern neuroscience and experimental psychology. More recently, treatments are no longer so clearly divided along traditional psychiatric/psychological and medical/psychotherapeutic lines. Mental disorders are increasingly viewed as brain diseases – a view that holds that treatment of the mind should involve both medical and psychological therapies.
