Psychiatrists use many forms of psychotherapy. There are psychotherapies that help patients change behaviors or thought patterns, psychotherapies that help patients explore the effect of past relationships and experiences on present behaviors, psychotherapies that treat troubled couples or families together, and more treatments that are tailored to help solve other problems in specific ways. Psychoanalysis is an intensive form of individual psychotherapy which requires frequent sessions over several years. The psychiatrist, who must have additional years of training in psychoanalysis, helps the patient to recall and examine events, memories and feelings from the past, many of them long forgotten, as a means of helping the patient understand present feelings and behavior and make changes as necessary. Psychiatrists use medications when thorough evaluation of a patient suggests that medication may correct imbalances in brain chemistry that are thought to be involved in some mental disorders.
Psychiatrists usually use medications in combination with psychotherapy.
A person wanting to become a psychiatrist must complete high school and college before entering medical school. The prospective psychiatrist may also study social and psychological sciences and psychobiology. Most psychiatrists and other physicians feel that a liberal arts college education is the best preparation for medical school. Medical students follow a standard curriculum, with only a few opportunities for choice. In addition to chemistry, biochemistry and physiology, students take courses in psychiatry, behavioral science, and neuroscience in the first two years of medical school.