Almeria, Spain

Health, Psychology and Psychiatry

Salud, Psicología y Psiquiatría

Table of contents

⇑Health, Psychology and Psychiatry at UAL

Language: Spanish Studies in Spanish
Subject area: medicine, health care
University website: www.ual.es
Type: PhD/Doctoral programme
Academic degree: Doctor

⇑Definitions and quotes

Health
Health is the ability of a biological system to acquire, convert, allocate, distribute, and utilize energy with maximum efficiency. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined human health in a broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This definition has been subject to controversy, in particular as lacking operational value, the ambiguity in developing cohesive health strategies and because of the problem created by use of the word "complete", which makes it practically impossible to achieve. Other definitions have been proposed, among which a recent definition that correlates health and personal satisfaction.
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry.
Psychology
Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, including conscious and unconscious phenomena, as well as feeling and thought. It is an academic discipline of immense scope and diverse interests that, when taken together, seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, and all the variety of epiphenomena they manifest. As a social science it aims to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases.
Psychology
The Savage interrupted him. "But isn't it natural to feel there's a God?"
"You might as well ask if it's natural to do up one's trousers with zippers," said the Controller sarcastically. "You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons–that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to.
"But all the same," insisted the Savage, "it is natural to believe in God when you're alone–quite alone, in the night, thinking about death …"
"But people never are alone now," said Mustapha Mond. "We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it."
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, chapter 17
Psychiatry
Since this is the age of science, not religion, psychiatrists are our rabbis, heroin is our pork, and the addict is the unclean person.
Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (New York: 1973), p. 64
Psychiatry
I can't stand feeble, robotic psychiatrists. They give you false drugs and turn you into a zombie.
Ian Brady, as quoted in Evening Standard, Tue 25 June 2013, pp.1-4
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