[Current issues in psychiatry].

Introduction: Psychiatry is the branch of medicine concerned with the defining and diagnosing mental disorders, finding ways of treatment, developing methods for determining causes, and conceiving measures for prevention of mental disorders. Psychiatry has greatly advanced over the last two decades. In our country, however, due to prejudice and ignorance, mental disorders are still often considered incurable and alarming by the general public as well as by physicians, and psychiatric patients are stigmatized and marginalized by the society.