We all need a psychiatrist

Three-dimensional reconstruction of oxytocin (green) and vasopressin (red) neurons in the hypothalamus. Imaris x64 9.3.0 [Apr 5 2019] / Europa Press

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• How to improve mental health after the coronavirus pandemic

In

representations, he

is the specialist who always appears as disturbing, when he is not directly the baddie of the film. The psychiatrist is often portrayed as a terrible manipulator capable of controlling the minds of his patients or as one who deals with serious mental disorders. Few people admit to visiting the psychiatrist, lest they be taken for crazy, while going to the psychologist or the therapist seems to denote a less serious discomfort, it can even be conceived as a simple support for the task of living. Nothing to do with losing your mind.

In reality, every mental health professional, if he or she is good, has the same objective as any other specialist: to alleviate the suffering of their patients, to ensure that they regain an optimal state of health and, therefore, that they can live the best life possible. within your own circumstances. Almost everyone who is suspicious of psychiatrists is because they can prescribe drugs, as if it were the only thing they do. Something, on the other hand, that would not make us distrust a cardiologist, let's say. That is why psychotropic drugs and psychotherapy are conceived as opposing and exclusive options. Taking an antidepressant is actually no more serious than a drug for tension or diabetes, but there is a general fear of medication aimed at restoring the balance of this particular organ that is the brain.Fear of dependency, of side effects, that our personality changes or that we anesthetize ourselves with artificial joy. Where is my individual identity if a tiny pill succeeds in turning me from a fatalistic pessimist to a sympathetic optimist? And it is that pain, even psychic, when it persists over time ends up becoming a distinctive feature.

There are ailments that are impossible to cure only with psychotherapy, there are moments of crisis that affect the chemistry of our tissues because, in effect, the separation between body and mind does not exist, it is a simple conceptual organization to think better. Even in situations of great suffering we resist being medicated, something we would never do with a broken leg or an infection. On the other hand, not all psychotherapy is necessarily harmless. Attempting to alleviate severe depression, chronic anxiety, or severe stress with

, yoga, or self-help books is as dangerous as attempting to remove the appendix yourself or with the help of a local healer.