ABSTRACT
As its name suggests, psychiatry is a branch of medicine concerned with mental disorders - their classification, aetiology, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Anyone intending to qualify as a psychiatrist must first undergo a full medical training and then specialize in psychiatry, which is simply a medical specialism among many others, including cardiology, dermatology, and gynaecology. Many of the problems that non-psychologists assume to fall within the scope of psychology are really philosophical problems. These are questions that must be tackled by rational argument rather than by experiments or observations of behaviour. The fundamental aim of research in psychology can be stated quite simply: it is to discover and understand the nature, functions, and phenomena of behaviour and mental experience. Research in psychology, as in any other science, always begins with a question that needs answering.
