I'd say that psychiatry depends on judging treatment outcome as to the success of any given treatment.
I don't consider it to be an exact science since there are so many variables among practicioners, patients and treatments. I guess we should be happy that anything works at all.

life

a so-called science based on theory and conjecture

It's a branch of medicine. Although it's a science it's very much an applied science where the result is more important than understanding the fine detail of the underlying science.

Our other applied sciences are the same. Electronics rely heavily on quantum physics which no one fully understands. Indeed there is a theory that there is only one electron in our universe and it's comings and goings can be explained by it travelling into 11 dimensional space. Others are of the opinion that the theory is absolute bollocks.

But my computer works when I switch it on. So we can have the benefits without unstanding the absolute detail.

Much of the psychiatry for bipolar is based on observation - e.g what particular meds have an effect. Hardly a theory and not conjecture. It's what works. Now we are getting to the point where we can hazard a guess about how these things might work which gives the opportunity for better treatment (not just meds).

The alternative is the dark ages of guesswork, theories warped to fit political agendas,charlatans, snake oil and wishful thinking. Base metals to Gold.

Well, to be fair, all sciences are based on theories that are tested via the scientific method.

Psychiatry is a lot more scientific than it used to be; Freud basically had a handful of patients and extrapolated his theories to the whole population. Hence we got the "you want to sleep with your mom" school of thought. Boy, that was a big help.

Now, there are better methods; I took Psychology for statistics and there are all kinds of means for measuring behavior against control groups. Of course, you're dealing with the human mind, and you can't experiment on a live one, generally, but they've found out a lot through head injuries, disorders, biochemistry, neurology and so on.

There's a lot to hate about psychiatry and it's history, but medicine in general has some pretty barbaric history too. Centuries ago, doctors used bees, corpseflesh (no I'm not making that up), urine, blood, etc etc. to "cure" people.

Not being an exact science or not it's done a hell of a lot of good for me...
I was in a really bad way before diagnosis and treatment.. I worked in the field for a long time as well and I hope that I helped others..xo

I agree with SunCloud on that one. I'd likely be dead with out psychiatry, flaws and the whole agonizing 'trial and error' process and all.

Psychology ...more conjecture than Psychiatry ...Psychiatry deals with the Biochemical issues of the brain. Not an exact science, as the brain is so complex.

Psychology, deals with emotional issues such as trauma ETC....really, this is a matter of speculation and the Psychologists , personal interpertation