What is psychiatry?
Psychiatry is the branch of medicine devoted to the study of mental disorders. This discipline deals with the prevention, assessment, diagnosis and treatment of these disorders in order to improve the quality of life of people suffering from them, ensuring their autonomy and adaptation to their social environment.
Which patients is it for?
Our team of specialists conduct psychiatric interviews and, if necessary, psycho-diagnostic tests to assess the patient. Once diagnosed, they will initiate the most appropriate treatment for their condition.
Main conditions and diseases
- Depressive disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD), which is characterised by low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or lack of self-esteem, sleep or appetite disorders, feeling tired and lack of concentration.
- Bipolar disorder, either type I or type II depending on the patient’s symptomatology, such as manic episodes, hypomania or major depressive episodes.
- Anxiety disorders, including panic attacks, which are sudden feelings of intense discomfort that can cause symptoms such as palpitations, excessive sweating, tremor, difficulty breathing or feeling suffocated.
- Other anxiety disorders include phobias, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia and generalised anxiety.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder, a disorder in which the patient has obsessions, compulsions or both that cause clinically significant distress or have repercussions in their social life, work, academic life or other important areas of functioning.
- Eating disorders, which are divided into anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder. They can start in childhood/adolescence and last into adulthood. Eating disorder patients have poor emotional management skills, so it is important to work on illness awareness, motivation for change and symptom management. Treatment for adult patients with binge eating disorder is done in conjunction with the Obesity Unit. Nutrition is another fundamental aspect in the treatment of patients with eating disorders.
- Personality disorders, which can be differentiated into Cluster A (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal personality disorder), Cluster B (antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic personality disorder), Cluster C (evasive, dependent, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder). These patients exhibit pervasive patterns of behaviours, emotions and thoughts that deviate markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture. These behaviours interfere with and impact interpersonal relationships, work and other contexts.
Treatments
- Psychotherapy: on occasion, and depending on the patient’s symptoms, psychotherapeutic support is necessary to treat cognitions and change certain behaviours, as well as to improve certain aspects that interfere with the patient’s day-to-day life, such as self-esteem, poor stress management, easy irritability and difficulty coping with conflicts.
- Pharmacological treatments
- Inpatient treatment
- Specific psychiatric units and hospital units
- Addiction units
- Eating disorders
- Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
