# Difference between a Therapist, Psychologist, and Psychiatrist? Which is best for me?



## MastaMel (Dec 21, 2006)

Hello all,

I have not posted on this forum for a while; I'm actually about to hit the 10 year member mark soon! Essentially to provide a brief back story, I started feeling symptoms of social anxiety, panic attacks, and depression sometime during the summer of 2005 and it has been with me ever since. Over the years, the intensity of my mental disorders have been reduced to a certain degree, but still exist.

I tried various SSRI's from 2006 to 2010, but ultimately did not find them helpful and have not taken any other anti depressant medications since. I currently take 0.5 MG Klonopin and 20 MG Propanolol as needed very rarely (maybe 6 times a year) prescribed by my primary physician. I try to generally avoid medication when I can.

Since self diagnosing myself with these symptoms in 2005, I have never visited a true specialist for my disorder(s). I always figured you visit a "Therapist" for mental disorders, but I am a bit confused. I'm not sure what a therapist really is... I've heard about Psychologists and Psychiatrists. I understand psychiatrist visits are generally short in nature and mainly to provide prescription medication, so I'm not sure if that would be the best option for me. I'm not sure if a therapist is a psychologist, psychiatrist, or something else altogether?

I am trying to get to the root cause of my disorders and would prefer to visit a specialist that can help repair my disorders, preferably without the use of prescription medication. 

So my questions are:

1) What is the difference between a therapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist? 
2) Are there any other specialists that I did not mention in question 1 that may be beneficial to visit?
3) Which specialist may be best for me?
4) Are there any treatments I should specify to receive to the specialist (CBT, etc.)

Thanks so much to all in advance!


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## marsia (Mar 22, 2016)

Hi! The difference between a therapist and a psychologist is that the psychologist has to have an advanced degree to call themselves that, but a therapist could be a life coach, could have an advanced degree, or could have a social worker degree. In general, there are MFCC's (Marriage and Family Therapists) who are called that in the field because the people with PhDs (with a research background or with a PhD but are clinical psychologists) want to distinguish themselves, so they claim the term "psychologist" and want the people with only a Master's degree to call themselves "therapist" instead. It's a status game, and though PhDs have more training, practicing psychotherapy is like everything else, the person and how good they are at what they do is what counts. You can have a life coach who did 9 months of training be far more effective than a PhD or vice versa. Psychiatrists have mostly medial training, so they dispense psychiatric medications and do a little counseling. 

The key to getting a good therapist is that you screen them really well. Ask if you can have a free initial consultation to determine if they are a good fit, and ask all your questions about them upfront in the first meeting. Many therapists will give a free consult. They don't tend to answer questions about themselves after the first few sessions, so ask everything you can upfront.

You definitely want someone trained in treating anxiety. Most therapists/counselors/psychologists are not trained in treating anxiety and are not effective with this disorder. If you can find someone who is trained in Acceptance and Commitment therapy, it focuses on learning mindfulness techniques and also values clarification. I am doing a workbook on this by Steven Hayes, and it's amazing. CBT also works for some people, but not for others. It's more replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, which in my biased opinion can turn into fighting your thoughts (don't think of pink elephants.) Maybe it's just whether the CBT counselor is really good or not, I have not been to one, but my husband was in a CBT group and found it effective, but his anxiety wasn't really long term, it was from a highly stressful competitive work environment that was making him have panic attacks. I hear a lot of people on this site say that CBT didn't help them, but if it did, they probably wouldn't be on this site in the first place, but out living their lives cured of SA instead. 

Anyway, hope you find a good therapist!


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## marsia (Mar 22, 2016)

I forgot to say that there are many bad therapists out there, so screen really well! Make sure to ask if they have successfully treated social anxiety and if so, how did they do that, what methods do they use. There are also a lot of people who are very talented, so maybe see if you can find any on yelp or other review sites. I was trained as an MFCC and there were quite a few amazing fellow students who were going to be great therapists, but maybe 2/3 of my class who were just average or who shouldn't even be in the field, but should have been clients instead. 

Good luck!


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## MastaMel (Dec 21, 2006)

marsia said:


> Hi! The difference between a therapist and a psychologist is that the psychologist has to have an advanced degree to call themselves that, but a therapist could be a life coach, could have an advanced degree, or could have a social worker degree. In general, there are MFCC's (Marriage and Family Therapists) who are called that in the field because the people with PhDs (with a research background or with a PhD but are clinical psychologists) want to distinguish themselves, so they claim the term "psychologist" and want the people with only a Master's degree to call themselves "therapist" instead. It's a status game, and though PhDs have more training, practicing psychotherapy is like everything else, the person and how good they are at what they do is what counts. You can have a life coach who did 9 months of training be far more effective than a PhD or vice versa. Psychiatrists have mostly medial training, so they dispense psychiatric medications and do a little counseling.
> 
> The key to getting a good therapist is that you screen them really well. Ask if you can have a free initial consultation to determine if they are a good fit, and ask all your questions about them upfront in the first meeting. Many therapists will give a free consult. They don't tend to answer questions about themselves after the first few sessions, so ask everything you can upfront.
> 
> ...





marsia said:


> I forgot to say that there are many bad therapists out there, so screen really well! Make sure to ask if they have successfully treated social anxiety and if so, how did they do that, what methods do they use. There are also a lot of people who are very talented, so maybe see if you can find any on yelp or other review sites. I was trained as an MFCC and there were quite a few amazing fellow students who were going to be great therapists, but maybe 2/3 of my class who were just average or who shouldn't even be in the field, but should have been clients instead.
> 
> Good luck!


Thanks so much for all your guidance and information. This was very helpful.


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## marsia (Mar 22, 2016)

MastaMel said:


> Thanks so much for all your guidance and information. This was very helpful.


Glad it was helpful! Let me know how it goes!!


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