On the 200th birthday of psychiatry

Two hundred years ago the term aEurozpsychiatry" (first named aEurozpsychiatery") was introduced by Johann Christian Reil in the city of Halle, Germany. With the word's composition Reil demonstrated that psychic disorders belong to the medical domain, which he justified in a long paper explaining why psychiatry must be one of the three major branches of medicine (the others being surgery and pharmacy). Further he emphasized that psychosomatics and medical psychology are part of the comprehensive new discipline psychiatry. He described psychotherapy as an essential treatment for mental and somatic diseases and having equivalence with pharmacological and surgical methods. Johann Christian Reil launched an antistigma campaign and a crusade towards humanization of psychiatric asylums. Two hundred years later psychiatry is well established as a medical discipline and has become self-confident through its self-determination, in spite of certain setbacks and some objectives that have not yet been achieved.