Current and historical practice, personal life history, and culture have a significant impact on the values of practitioners in psychiatry. Most psychiatrists have a strong medical identity but recognize that to be a good clinician they need more than just their biomedical knowledge and skills.

The new UK training curricula reflect the changing value landscape, shifting away from the biological and the psychological and the increasing emphasis on safeguarding. Now explicitly included are VBP principles such as partnership; person-centred care; practice being based on both evidence and values; multidisciplinary working; a model drawing on the social sciences, neurosciences, and the humanities; and clinicians needing to understand the impact of culture, religion, and social systems. Co-production, the doctor–patient power imbalance, protected characteristics, the relevance of the history of psychiatry, and sustainability appear as new additions.

The media portrayal of psychiatry helps the public to understand mental illness and psychiatry, shapes public attitudes and stigma, influences treatment-seeking, scrutinizes how people with mental illness are treated by psychiatry and wider society, and has the potential to protect (but also to harm) people. Despite some improvements in recent decades, there are still examples of coverage maintaining negative stereotypes, and appropriate guidelines are needed.