Psychiatry: An Impossible Profession?

Abstract

Objective: To examine the disconcerting question as to whether psychiatry is a fully-fledged profession or not. Method: A review of pertinent literature regarding the criteria of a profession, the vulnerability of psychiatry to abuse, and potential models for the proper practice of psychiatry. Results: Psychiatry lost its professional anchorage entirely with its misuse to suppress dissent in the former Soviet Union and in the so-called euthanasia program in Nazi Germany. It remains vulnerable to abuse unless psychiatrists recognise the professional criteria they must satisfy. A new symbol, a humble stool, is proposed. Its three legs represent the three equally significant dimensions of psychiatric practice: science, art and ethics. Conclusion: Psychiatry just ‘scrapes home’ in constituting a profession but only subject to three provisos: namely (i) that psychiatrists appreciate the need to achieve a coherent body of special knowledge through a genuine creative process which necessarily results in uncomfortable tension from time to time; (ii) that we promote the art of psychiatry by cultivating an ethos of caring and sensitivity; and (iii) that we function within an articulated ethical framework with respect for codes of ethics as guidelines.