Psychiatry has been separated from mainstream medicine in part by diagnostic manuals, like the DSM or ICD, which advocate conceptual distinctions between 'mental' and 'neurological' diseases. The fact is that such distinctions are not apparent, being an allusion to the false mind-body dualism that pervades people's thoughts, and indeed our common language.
Evidence of changes to the brain organ in established psychiatric disease abounds; whilst primary changes to the brain from trauma or stroke exact repercussions on the mind and behavior of people. Clearly the mind is borne of the brain and change can occur from both direction.
A realistic view of humans or other animals must consider 'mental' and 'organic' as distinct realms but as methods of enquiry and interaction with a single, cohesive organism.
Some disorders, such as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, get caught in the middle of each disciple to the detriment of those patients, and society as a whole.
Time to end the distinction between mental and neurological illnesses
P D White, H Rickards, A Z J Zeman
BMJ 2012
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