The "ten commandements of psychiatry"

Abstract

I was recently discussing the symptomatology of a psychiatric case with a colleague in the presence of a final year medical student. When my colleague left, the student confessed that he felt bewildered by what he called the "abstract" nature of mental disorder and its manifestations. He intends devoting himself to general practice and as he is well aware that a good proportion of his future patients will be psychiatric ones, he has asked me whether it is possible for me, to reduce the 'subject matter of psychiatric guidelines and thus spare him the pitfalls of any fumbling approaches to his patients.