Psychiatry is not about "happiness". It is about diagnosing and treating mental illness.
...Really!? Don't you find that sad? Shouldn't it be? I mean, really, isn't the point of all medical specialties "happiness"? Isn't the point of all this time you doctors spend learning to diagnose and treat diseases to give your patients a better chance at happiness? Or has it just become a high-paying game of incredible skill?
...What is the point of diagnosing and treating mental illness? Ultimately, to give your patients a better chance at happiness, right? Well, in that regard, the brain is unlike any other area of the body. If you're trying to adjust any other bone or organ, there is a simple, 'right' way that it should work, and getting from point a to point b is a relatively simple goal-oriented process. A better functioning organ or bone = less pain = higher functionality = a better chance at happiness. That's true to some extent in the brain as well. There are things that aren't working right that great psychiatrists and neurologists over the years have learned to identify and correct. A better functioning brain = less pain = higher functionality = a better chance at happiness.
...The reason I am most interested in the brain...as opposed to any other organ...is that the process of what makes us happy itself occurs in the brain. I'm not going to pretend I know much about neurology, but I know that there are certain synaptic responses, channels, etc. that lead to the feeling of happiness. For me, it's all about learning to connect the outer world to the inner world. What happens out there that makes us happy in there. What happens out there that channels this synaptic response that leads to happiness, and what happens out there that channels this synaptic response that leads to sadness.
...In my thesis, I did a lot of work on the evolutionary aspect of positive emotion, of which very little is known. The evolutionary aspect of negative emotions, on the other hand, is very well known. Sadness, Fear, Aggresiveness, etc...these are all signals of danger. If someone or some thing, for example, is trespassing against you, threatening you, you feel fear. Our 'caveman' ancestors that had the strongest negative emotion of fear, were the ones who were most likely to escape danger, and to go on to produce.
...The evolutionary aspect of positive emotions is somewhat similar. As human beings became more advanced, social creatures, there were advantages to living and cooperating in groups. Thus, positive emotions such as joy, tolerance, friendliness, etc. began to be naturally selected. Barbara Fredrickson of the University of Michigan has even shown that a positive mood moves us into an entirely different frame of neurological processing...one that is more open, inviting, accepting, and creative...as opposed to defensive, protective, seek-and-destroy. Problem solving has been shown to be better in subjects that are first put into a good mood by something like rekindling fond memories, or playing with puppies beforehand. There is very little that we know about anything in the grand scheme of EVERYTHING...but I find the argument that positive emotions are better than negative emotions quite convincing, lol. A person that has more positive emotions, and less negative emotions, is going to have a higher quality of life.
...Psychology, Psychiatry, Neurology, etc...it should be about more than correcting problems, shouldn't it!? It should be about finding out which triggers in the brain lead to happiness...and how the outside world can trigger those triggers. I want to be a master of both the inside and outside worlds. I want to learn as much as possible about what triggers positive emotions inside the brain. And I want to learn as much as possible about what sets off those triggers in the outside world.
...I am very well aware that I am just some idiot outsider...but that's what I'm interested in. But are you really telling me that there is no place for this kind of research in psychiatry??
Tell a neurologist you're interested in his field since you're pursuing the study of happiness. Curious to see his reaction.
...I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. What do you think he or she will say?