PSYCHIATRA'S ROLE IN THE CHEMICAL DEPENDENCE MULTIDISCIPLINARY SERVICE TEAM

The psychiatrist is a physician specializing in psychic health (and illness). It has fields in common with the psychologist, namely psychotherapy. The difference between them, the external observer simplifies, is that the psychiatrist can prescribe medications. So, in a simplistic view, the psychiatrist's role in the team would be this. Treatment with drugs is extremely effective for a number of disorders. Others, unfortunately, benefit little from this approach. However, when we have a real, clinical situation, we do not have a disorder being treated, but a patient, a person. That means we have to think, adapt and often dare. Treat specific symptoms, have waist set. Knowing the rules very well is the first step, but understanding where they came from, why they settled, allows us to see things more broadly. Sometimes we can pull a rabbit out of a hat. But more than that, we are with the patient and the rest of the team to welcome them in their entirety. However, before being an expert in psychiatry, he is a subspecialist in disorders related to the harmful use of chemicals. licit and illicit (which we popularly call drugs), the psychiatrist is a doctor, and, by training, sees the person in a particular way. This view includes basic aspects of other areas of medicine, and allows other health problems that interfere with treatment to be addressed. It allows clarifying diagnoses, performing exams of various types. It also helps to think and organize, along with the other professions that participate in the team, a global picture of the patient and even his family. This is not to say that the general practitioner or even doctor cannot help this patient. But willy-nilly, dealing with this on a day-to-day basis with different people in different situations brings a snag.
It is therefore the role of the psychiatrist to have this experience, this experience, and to benefit more than with expertise. technical and theoretical, but with their own personal and professional history.