Question regarding PhD in psychology vs psychiatrist

[Canadian26]

Hi, Im currently looking into going for master and my PhD, however I was interested in doing it in psychiatry vs psychology, can anyone tell me what the major difference would be? Only a few schools offer a psychiatry degree, but almost all schools have a program for psychology.
Thanks!

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[erg923]

Psychiatry is a medical specialty and psychiatrists are trained as medical doctors (M.Ds) before specializing in the field of psychiatry. To become a psychiatrist one must go to medical school for 4 years then specialize in psychiatry during a 3-4 year residency. Psychiatrists can prescribe medications and often have much different roles in patient care than psychologists. Many do not engage in any psychotherapy beyond brief supportive talk.

Clinical Psychologists are not medical doctors (Ph.D. rather than a M.D) and go to graduate school (not medical school) in clinical psychology for 5-6 years. The Ph.d is research degree as well. You will have to write an extensive empirical dissertation and you will learn alot about statistics and research design and methodology. Your role in patient care is very different from that of a psychiatrist. You will be trained extensively in psychological/personality and cognitive testing to assist in diagnosis and you will have indepth training in formal psychotherapy/counseling. Your training in diagnosis and mental illness in general will be less infleunced by the medical model and will draw from a variety of perspectives including social psychology, learning theory, developmental psychology, and similar to medicine....neuroscience. Psychology has many subspecialties including neuropsychology, health psychology, forensic psychology, behavioral medicine, etc. You will be dually trained as both a practitioner and as scientific researcher (hence the "scientist-practioner model" of most ph.d programs).

This is the short version by the way.

 

[the duck]

I'd suggest you do a little background research before you come bothering us here, if you are planning on going into anything related to mental health, you should already know the difference between a psychology PhD and an MD degree.

 

[pingouin]

I'd suggest you do a little background research before you come bothering us here, if you are planning on going into anything related to mental health, you should already know the difference between a psychology PhD and an MD degree.

And I'd suggest that given the very brief length of time you've been on SDN and your extremely limited posting history in the psychology forums that you not speak about bothering "us" when most of the people in here ("us") are happy to provide constructive feedback to people who have questions, rather than mocking them.

erg, nice response.

 

[erg923]

I'd suggest you do a little background research before you come bothering us here, if you are planning on going into anything related to mental health, you should already know the difference between a psychology PhD and an MD degree.

And yet, somehow you manage to go on....

 

[anonymousername]

I'd suggest you do a little background research before you come bothering us here, if you are planning on going into anything related to mental health, you should already know the difference between a psychology PhD and an MD degree.

i would consider this "background research" as the OP is proactively going on the internet to inquire about information (even if it isn't by the most effective method)