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Where does
psychotherapy fit in?
Some clients ask me
about the differences between psychiatrists, psychologists,
psychotherapists and counsellors. It can be quite confusing, as the
actual work with the client might be very similar. A fairly simplistic
way to think of it is as follows.
Psychiatrists
begin their training with medical degrees and are the only
mental-health practitioners that can prescribe medications. They also
deal with people who have serious mental illnesses and those that need
hospitalisation for their treatment. Although the prescription of
medications for their patients is common, some also rely on talking to their patients for their treatment.
Psychologists are university-educated, and many practice a form of psychological
treatment called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This treatment often
occurs over a fixed number of sessions, with a primary orientation
towards treatments for phobias, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and
other psychological conditions where the psychologist perceives an
imbalance between the real world and their client’s perception of it.
Psychologists often specialise in the type of clients that they see,
and may label some of the work they do as psychotherapy or counselling.
Many psychologists don’t actually see clients but are involved in
research, work for corporations or teach in universities.
Psychotherapists
and counsellors are generally a lot more varied in terms of the type work that they do,
their training and their professional orientation. Psychotherapists are
often associated with medium to long-term depth treatments that include
the cognitive and emotional world of the client. On the other hand,
counsellors tend to focus on short to medium term work with an emphasis
on people’s cognitive systems.
To further confuse things, when a
psychiatrist or psychologist does long-term depth work that is based on
talking to clients, they can label this work psychotherapy or
counselling.
Getting
the right help
Unfortunately, almost anyone can call
themself a psychotherapist or counsellor. To counter this, the Psychotherapy
and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) rightly insists on specific basic training and professional
requirements. For this reason, it is always a very good idea to check
out the qualifications of anyone advertising themselves as a counsellor
or a psychotherapist.
- Ask what professional association they belong to
and whether that association is a member of PACFA. If their
professional association is linked to PACFA, this can give you some
confidence.
- Find out if they have been
involved in their own long term process of psychoanalysis or
psychotherapy. Practitioners who have done this work themselves are
likely to have a much better understanding of what their clients are
going through.
For most people I firmly believe that my clients are helped by the personal care and intellectual rigor that psychotherapy offers. | 
