The Therapy Space

What is the Difference between a Psychiatrist and a Counselor

There are a variety of mental health professionals that one can easily be confused which one to see. There are psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and therapists, and in order for people to find the practitioner that will best serve their needs, they need to know what makes them different.

A counselor is usually confused with a psychiatrist because they are both mental health professionals who help people deal with their mental health issues. The importance of knowing the difference is that there certain issues that a psychiatrist can deal with that a counselor shouldn’t. In other words, a psychiatrist can be a counselor, but a counselor can’t be a psychiatrist.

Let us talk about each of them so that the differences can be more pronounced.

Counselor

A counselor helps clients suffering from emotional stress from issues like depression, anxiety, death, relationship problems, trauma and substance abuse. In many states in America, one needs to be properly licensed to be a practitioner, which leads many people in the field to seek out a bachelor’s and master’s degree in counseling. Counselors work in a variety of settings, including private practices, mental health clinics, community center schools and even police stations.

The main way counselors help their patients work through their problems is talk therapy. Some of the therapies that counselors use to help patients include individual therapy (the most widely used technique here being cognitive therapy), group therapy or family therapy. Many professionals from the health field can be counselors, including doctors, nurses, social workers and even psychiatrists.

Psychiatrist

Psychiatrists are actually mental health doctors. This means that they can actually diagnose and treat patients who are suffering from emotional stresses, something that someone who is just a counselor can’t do. They are even licensed to deal with major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. You can find them working in many places as well, such as hospitals, medical centers, private practices, courts, medical research centers (since they can also conduct research) and rehabilitation centers.

Although they can also use talk therapy to help their patients, psychiatrists can prescribe medication as well since they are medical doctors. They can also order a variety of medical tests to find out if the mental disorders are causing any physical symptoms. Depending on the needs of the patient, they can even use electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as treatment. This is because psychiatrists have got the necessary training from doing four years of medical school, two years of clinical experience or internship and the mandatory two years of residency.

With the explanations outlined above, one can now know that a counselor and psychiatrist are different. The biggest difference is that a psychiatrist has to be a doctor while a counselor need not be one to help people. If one needs medication or have tests done, then they need to see a psychiatrist. If they just need to talk it out through therapy sessions, then a counselor is more suited to help them out. It is just a matter of doing research to determine which one is needed.