I recently had an hour or so's conversation with a younger but seasoned neuropsychologist who is strongly invested in making logical diagnoses.<p>It was the first time I actually heard someone in his professional area tie testing results to functional areas of the brain <i>and their inter-dependent interaction.</i><p>I'm sure what we discussed will be refined, re-evaluated, and in some cases corrected. But it <i>made sense.</i> From verbal profile and testing down to functional analysis including the insights being gained from successive generations of ever-more-revealing scanning and physical measurement.<p>Up until now, I've been inclined to call psychiatrists "witch doctors". (And psychotherapists, "rent-a-friends.") Maybe that's beginning to change.<p>With some people. I still expect the majority are locked into institutional perspectives and career tracks. Despite its call-out to science, the practice of medicine is actually a very conservative -- to the point of not infrequently being counter-productive -- activity. At least, in the U.S.
> The two main treatments are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a talk-centered approach that gets patients to readjust their habits, and antidepressant medications. Both are about equally effective.<p>I was under the impression that CBT is actually more effective than medicating, and especially has far less relapses than medication.