How to combine psychiatry and psychology? Interview with Dr. Ignacio Vera

Ignacio Vera López is a psychiatrist at Centro TAP, a psychology center in Madrid. What is his work like?

The relationship between psychiatry and psychology gives rise to many misunderstandings, as not everyone understands how these two sciences complement each other.

And yet, if we want to understand what mental health is and how it is promoted, it is necessary to have a realistic view of the link between psychiatry and clinical psychology; a view far removed from biases and old clichés and stereotypes.

Understanding the role of the psychiatrist in a psychology center.

On this occasion we interviewed Dr. Ignacio we interviewed Dr. Ignacio Vera LópezIn this interview, the psychiatrist associated with Centro TAP, a psychological care clinic in Madrid, explains the work of a psychiatrist as an intervention agent who supports teams of psychologists and takes on cases that require medically based care.

Let's start with the basics: what is the role of a psychiatrist working in a psychological and psychiatric care center? What kind of patients do you see?

In some patients I perform the initial evaluation with the aim of guiding a diagnosis and establishing a treatment plan in which both psychopharmacological treatment and psychotherapeutic interventions are integrated.

In other patients, it is the psychologists from the center itself or from other offices in the region who ask me to evaluate patients who are undergoing psychological treatment to determine the need for psychopharmacological intervention with the aim of promoting a favorable evolution of the patient.

It is often assumed that psychiatrists are limited to prescribing psychotropic drugs. How else can psychiatry intervene in people's health?

The origin of this belief seems to lie in the medical training from which we psychiatrists start. However, clinical diagnosis and the psychopharmacological approach are only two of the tools with which psychiatrists approach patients.

Training in psychotherapy is mandatory in our professional career and the psychotherapeutic approach and social interventions are an essential part of our care work.

How do clinical psychology and psychiatry complement each other?

It is an absolutely necessary complementarity. Mental disorders cannot be conceived in the same way as other organic diseases under a strictly medical paradigm, since they are the result of the interaction between Biological factors, psychic functioning and the social environment in which the subject is immersed.

Psychopharmaceuticals can provide symptomatic relief, but it is necessary to carry out psychotherapeutic work that takes into account the subjectivity of the individual and ensures social contexts that dignify the person.

In many respects, the general view of the mental health branch of medicine is anchored in images from the 1960s and 1970s. What has changed the most in psychiatry in recent decades?

It is true that clinical psychiatry has been linked in the popular imagination to asylum confinement and forced treatment of the "insane", but it should not be forgotten that asylums arose to protect people with mental health problems from the social masses who wanted to lynch them. In these institutions they were welcomed, not treated, since they were not considered sick, but different and potentially dangerous and unpredictable.

However, it has been the psychiatrists themselves who have been the main drivers of the psychiatric reform that has humanized the treatment and treatment of people with mental disorders by eliminating the old prevailing abuses and promoting a holistic and humanitarian vision of mental disorders. This is undoubtedly the main achievement of psychiatry in the last 40 years.

The coming years will probably see new discoveries and technological developments that will help many patients. What are the most promising scientific advances in the field of psychiatry?

Advances in psychopharmacology, the sophistication of neuroimaging techniques and applications of genetics will undoubtedly continue to contribute to alleviating the distress of our patients.

However, advances in technoscience should not distract us from listening, which is what can truly enable us to understand the psychic suffering of each person.

The subjectivity of the individual goes through any symptomatic expression, so the integration between the advances of technoscience and listening to each story seems to be the main challenge facing psychiatry today.

Finally... could you tell us about a case of improvement of a patient that you are particularly proud of?

It is difficult to choose a case. I am satisfied with being able to understand the discomfort of each patient and contribute to lessen the psychological suffering that lies behind each story.

Dr. Ignacio Vera works at Centro Tap, located at Avenida de Manoteras number 8, Madrid.