Posts Tagged ‘psychiatry’

Stress Illness and Psychiatry (2)

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Remarkably, mental health practitioners (MHP) are largely uninvolved with the largest single group of people with mental health issues.  This is because those issues are manifesting most prominently as physical symptoms.  These patients find it difficult to imagine  that their illness is stress-related.  They seek help from medical clinicians, few of whom have formal training in stress illness diagnosis and so usually don’t refer to MHPs.  Even when patients are referred, few MHPs have much experience with what to look for in a patient complaining of physical symptoms.  It is uncommon for MHPs to know that they can relieve these symptoms using their usual techniques augmented by a Stress History.

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Stress Illness and Psychiatry (1)

Monday, June 14th, 2010

The single most common cause of symptoms that bring people to a primary care medical clinician is psychosocial stress.  As readers of this blog know, few of these patients are correctly diagnosed and treated.  This might lead you to wonder about what the psychiatric community is doing to solve this problem.  Unfortunately, the answer is “not nearly enough.”

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