4 minutes to read
Psychologists and psychiatrists are professionals who deal with mental health and are in great demand. Each of them has knowledge and techniques aimed at specific objectives, but which can be complementary.
Although they are correlated areas that work for the understanding and care of mental health, psychology and psychiatry professionals perform different assistance. Is it possible to identify the difference between psychiatry and psychology? That’s what you’re going to discover today. Check out!
What does the psychologist do?
The psychologist is the professional who has a BA in Psychology and can carry out actions to promote, prevent and recover mental health in different contexts, such as clinics, hospitals, companies, schools, among others.
One of the psychologist’s ways of acting is psychotherapy, which can be performed individually or in groups. It is a process in which the psychologist welcomes, understands the patients’ complaints and performs interventions through techniques that are recognized by science, practice and professional ethics.
Psychotherapy aims to promote mental health and provide conditions for people to be able to face their conflicts and suffering in general. Thus, it is not restricted to the care of people diagnosed with mental disorders.
What does the psychiatrist do?
Psychiatrists have training in Medicine with specialization in Psychiatry, the so-called residency, which lasts 3 years. They act in the prevention, promotion and treatment related to mental health. They can also act in the legal field, through Forensic Psychiatry, helping to assess the psychic abilities of individuals and in the Occupational field, analyzing the impact of work on mental health.
Psychiatry brings the medical gaze to the field of psychiatric disorders, seeking to observe human behavior with the intention of describing its peculiarities and classifying phenomena into “diseases”, which helps the study, predicts the course of these pathologies throughout people’s lives and guides the therapeutic proposal, the treatment.
With knowledge of the medical sciences, of the body as a whole, a psychiatrist also works by differentiating alterations linked to the purely psychic sphere from the so-called organic pathologies of the body. They may show similar signs, for example, changes in the thyroid gland that manifest with symptoms similar to those of depression: tiredness, drowsiness, depressed mood and weight gain.
In addition to the bond with the patient and the behavioral management that these professionals use, there are a number of medications that can be indicated to control the symptoms of psychiatric disorders. It is important to remember that most patients will benefit from a multidisciplinary follow-up, with the psychiatrist being an integral part of this group.
Among the disorders that benefit from the use of medications we can mention: Anxiety Disorders, Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Affective Disorder, Schizophrenia, Attention Deficit Disorder.
Can psychologists and psychiatrists work together?
Psychology and Psychiatry use lines of treatment and understanding of human mental health that often overlap.
However, when the patient’s mental health problems worsen or begin to affect the normal performance of his body and his life, it is recommended to combine psychological and psychiatric treatment. Together, these professionals are able to identify the patient’s needs and act in a complementary way to aid their recovery.
Technical review by: Renata de Sousa, Karen Borges, psychologists at Einstein, and Dr. Daniel Oliva, Einstein’s psychiatrist.
Source: vidasaudavel.einstein.br
