Psychiatry or Psychology?

[smalltownpsych]

Yep. It is very situation and patient specific. That is why it is typically a mistake to generalize something like number of sessions whether it was the old analytical model of 100's of sessions or the brief CBT model of 8 sessions. I just had two sessions of CBT with someone with some OCD symptoms. They were mainly doing what they would need to do to deal with the symptoms already so I validated that, gave a few more pointers and they were good to go.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Sonia Janjua]

Hey all, I know this has probably been asked before, but I haven't found a thread with my specific questions. I am very passionate about helping people that have mental illnesses and I want to help them. I was pursuing psychiatric PA, but I've found that I like my psychology classes better than I do my chemistry or physics. Can anyone give me some advice about how to come to a conclusion about what to pursue?
Thanks!

Psychiatry is a good field if you don't like talking much but want to help people. Psychology requires lots of talking with patients, you have to communicate a lot as a psychologist and do lots of research. This is actually fun if you love talking to people and don't get tired of people easily. I myself wanted to be a psychologist before but changed to psychiatry because I like prescribing medication.

 

[erg923]

It's important to note that the above post is not a good representation of either field.

 

[WisNeuro]

Yeah, my job requires a lot more than talking with my patients and doing lots of research. While I do both of those things as parts of my job, there are a myriad of other things I do in my day-to-day work.

 

[LupaCupcake]

the value of job shadowing ^^