Lost objects : the territory of study and action of psychiatry

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss about some key issues concerning psychiatry. What really does a psychiatrist nowadays? What kind of disorder does he treat? Why psychiatry keeps itself  apart from other specialties and within its own autonomous field? Having in mind the differences between the mental disorders, can we consider that the same semiological elements are appropriate for all of them or do we need to resume an individual analysis from each of those disorders? Can we go through the sparse spectrum of neurotic disorders ignoring the market forces or the dualistic interpretation? In this context, there is still room for questioning: is there an undiscovered explanation regarding the psychiatry disorders or are we trying to find a whole rationale explanation to study non-agroupable objects, lacking of that aforementioned common nuclear logic? And finally, could it be that the constant variables which we assume as the constitutive elements of psychiatric objects are barely the shifting boundaries that change as the time and the culture does?