History of Psychiatry

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"

(World Health Organization 1994).

According to Greek Mythology Psyche was the daughter of an unknown king. Her beauty was so extraordinary that men would worship her. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and sexual rapture, became extremely jealous for her beauty. So she sent her son Eros, the god of love and sexual desire, to make Psyche fall in love with some unworthy man. But Eros, instead of obeying Aphrodite, fell in love with Psyche and visited her every night, although never allowing Psyche to see him. However, Psyche managed to know who her lover was. When their love was discovered, Psyche suffered the wrath of Aphrodite, who mistreated her in many ways. However, after several complications the lovers could reunite, and Psyche was reconciled with Aphrodite and made immortal.

So, psyche became the Greek concept of the self, encompassing - the modern ideas of Soul, Self, and Mind. The Greeks believed that the mind, soul or "psyche" was responsible for behavior.

Psychiatry meaning in Greek “healing of the spirit” is a medical specialty, whose primary goal is to improve people's mental well-being. Psychiatrists are trained to manage and improve the symptoms of various mental problems, as well as assisting people to gain insight into themselves and their relationships with others. Also, important to know that up to one-half of all visits to primary care physicians are due to conditions that are caused or exacerbated by mental or emotional problems.

Standard psychiatric treatment can involve medications, psychotherapies with different approaches and psychosocial interventions. Besides this, the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is FDA approved procedure and is being used more than 40 years to treat severe, resistant depression, especially accompanied by psychotic features (delusions, hallucinations etc.).

Recently, another FDA procedure became available to treat depression – vagal nerve stimulation (VNG), also available for epilepsy treatment.

Depression and anxiety disorders — the two most common mental illnesses — each affect 19 million American adults annually. Depression greatly increases the risk of developing heart disease. People with depression are four times more likely to have a heart attack than those with no history of depression.

More and more scientific research studies have interest in different age categories developing mental problems. They were able to reveal that suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds and the sixth leading cause of death for 5- to 14-year-olds. The number of attempted suicides is even higher. Late-life depression affects about 6 million adults, but only 10 percent ever receive treatment.

Acknowledging latest news reports and warnings related to prescription anti-depressants, many people are turning to natural alternative medicines in an effort to safely affect depression related symptoms. In fact, alternative medicine use has increased over 300% among adults, teens and children in the last ten years.

Reinforced by numerous clinical and case studies, natural therapeutic agents like St. Johns Wort, Kava Kava, Valerian Root, 5-HTP and SAM-e have been shown to produce significant anti-depressive results in patients taking one. Many of these mentioned herbal and natural ingredients accepted officially in European countries. Some of them proven to be as effective as chemically produced antidepressants, even, though, are not regulated by the FDA.

In conclusion, it is important to emphasize that there are many other approaches to help people with emotional issues, mainly neurotic problems. Some of these healing procedures have already been accepted by modern medicine, others are in the process of research. Among these practical treatment are:

We are constantly determined to improve our health and quality of life by exercising, dieting, treating or preventing illnesses, trying to remain in well-being condition. Health can be defined as a state of body- mind-spirit balance. Possibly, this is the main philosophical concept of life, which we would like to discuss with you together with other healing related topics.