As mental health professionals, therapists and psychiatrists have the same goal—to treat and manage their patients mental health symptoms and struggles so they can live a happy, healthy and fulfilling life. However, they play different roles to treat mental health disorders and symptoms.
What is a Therapist?
Therapists are licensed mental health professionals who use talk therapy to treat their patients symptoms and help them develop useful skills such as healthy coping strategies, communications skills and more. Therapists specialize in treating mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. They also help those without a diagnosable mental illness with interpersonal conflict, internal conflict and more.
Not all therapists use the same approach, since several forms of talk therapy have been developed to treat a wide array of mental health disorders and symptoms. Therapists can even offer specialized care depending on their training and experience—for example, some therapists are experienced in LGBTQIA+/gender affirmative therapy, while others may specialize in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), which is used to treat post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In addition to using talk therapy to help their patients manage symptoms, licensed therapists are also able to diagnose different mental health disorders. However, unlike psychiatrists, therapists are not able to prescribe medication.
Examples of Different Types of Talk Therapy:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Humanistic Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Interpersonal Therapy (IBT)
- Group Therapy
- Couples Counseling
- Family Therapy
What is a Psychiatrist?
Psychiatrists are mental health professionals who go to medical school to learn the field of psychiatry. As part of their professional training, they study how to treat mental health disorders as defined by the DSM-5. DSM-5 stands for The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, which is the most up-to-date version of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—a standard tool in psychology, psychotherapy and psychiatry used to diagnose and treat mental health disorders.
Rather than treating mental health disorders through talk therapy, psychiatrists use medication to treat and manage their patients mental health conditions. While some psychiatrists also have the credentials to conduct psychotherapy (a.k.a “talk therapy”), therapist and psychiatrist are not interchangeable terms.
Services that Psychiatrists Provide:
- Diagnosing mental, emotional and behavioral disorders
- Prescribing medication to treat mental, emotional and behavioral disorders
- Monitoring patient’s symptoms, success of prescribed medications, and monitoring side effects
- Provide medication management such as medication changes or dosage adjustments through follow-up visits
Aside from using medication to treat mental health disorders, some psychiatrists are able to recommend and even provide alternative therapies for certain conditions when appropriate.
This can include the following:
- Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
- Light therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Ketamine infusions for treatment resistant psychological conditions, such as treatment resistant depression (depression that is unable to be managed through the use of antidepressants)
- Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS)
- Deep brain stimulation (DBS)
Getting Help
No matter what you are going through, seeing a therapist or a psychiatrist can help.
In fact, studies have shown that seeing both a psychiatrist and therapist at the same time can result in a higher success rate when it comes to treating mental illness and mental illness symptoms. If you’re interested in therapy, psychiatry, or both, Valera Health can help. We offer virtual therapy, psychiatry and medication management services for our patients. To learn more about our services and to schedule a free consultation, visit www.valerahealth.com or click here.