Psychiatry’s Niche Role in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Article Abstract Because this piece does not have an abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text. The challenges that confront mental health professionals during a pandemic reach beyond the realm of disaster psychiatry to encompass skills in crisis counseling, public health, organizational behavior, psychopharmacology, and providing mental health support services to nonpsychiatric health care workers. Psychiatrists, like all physicians, may respond to the "all hands on deck" battle call from many health care institutions—deploying wherever and however the communal effort demands. Our primary expertise, however, entails distinguishing and managing normal from pathological responses to stress.