Psychiatry is a medical specialty dealing with the prevention, assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of mental illness.

Its primary goal is the relief of mental suffering associated with disorder and improvement of mental well-being.

This may be based in hospitals or in the community and patients may be voluntary or involuntary.

Psychiatry adopts a medical approach but may take in to account biological, psychological, and social/cultural perspectives.

Treatment by medication or, less often, various forms of psychotherapy may be undertaken.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors and are certified in treating mental illness using the biomedical approach to mental disorders including the use of medications.

Psychiatrists may also go through significant training to conduct psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and/or cognitive behavioral therapy, but it is their medical training that differentiates them from clinical psychologists and other psychotherapists..

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