There’s always room for the practice to improve, for it to become more beneficial and to offer more to patients suffering from various mental illnesses or traumas. The stigma around mental illness as something to be treated is difficult enough to counteract with adequate care and attention, but I think it also shields a lot of mediocre psychiatrists from criticism. In our quest to normalize therapy, we’ve empowered a lot of quacks. And, of course, the patient has to want to change in order to benefit. Antibiotics don’t care what you think of them; they’ll cure an infection regardless.
One of these days, we’ll get a psychiatrist from the future, and he or she will be worth learning from, and I’ll change my tune. You’re right that it’s still very much a developing medicine.