Psychology, Psychotherapy and Mental Wellness

Psychopharmacology & Psychopathology

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Psychopharmacology is the study of the use of medications in treating mental disorders. It is a proficiency in professional psychology that involves the application of psychopharmacological principles, scientific data and clinical practices to individual psychopathology and problems across a range of populations. It uniquely blends the scientific study of behavior, its biological basis and the interaction of medication with the latter to produce acute and long term therapeutic changes in normal and abnormal behaviour functioning.

In psychopharmacology, researchers are interested in a wide range of drug classes such as antidepressants and stimulants. Drugs are researched for their pharmaceutical properties, physical side effects, and psychological side effects.

Psychopathology is a term which refers to either the study of mental illness or mental distress or the manifestation of behaviours and experiences which may be indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment. Most notably, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists are particularly interested in this area and may either be involved in clinical treatment of mental illness, or research into the origin, development and manifestations of such states. Psychiatrists in particular are interested in descriptive psychopathology, which has the aim of describing the psychiatric symptoms and syndromes of mental illness.