Posted by Leighwit on April 21, 2001, at 13:27:44
In reply to Psychiatrist vs. Psychologist - Help!!!, posted by Jennifer1 on April 20, 2001, at 20:36:53
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> But I wanted to know if anyone found that seeing a Psychiatrist was better than seeing a Psychologist. I'm very limited when it comes to my insurance and would really like to find one within my plan. Otherwise I'll have to go out of network, which had an extremely high cost.
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Jennifer,Your question about psychiatrists vs. psychologists is an apples to oranges comparison. Among other differences, psychiatrists can prescribe meds and psychologists cannot. Psychologists counsel; most psychiatrists do not, i.e., they primarily clinically diagnose conditions and manage med therapies. I saw a psychologist on a very disciplined schedule for the first year after being diagnosed and starting ADs. I found it very helpful (and typically it's a lot of work if it's going to be effective -- it's not like going to a Pdoc and discussing the diagnosis/symptoms and how the treatment is working for 15 minutes once every six weeks or so.) Psychologists can't do what psychiatrists can, however, and most good psychologists will not start seeing a patient until their depression is under control. If you're really depressed, you cannot do the work of the therapy. The conventional plan-of-action would be to start with a psychiatrist from your PPO or HMO plan, and then consider seeing a psychologist for counseling. I always start with physicians in my insurance plan (I've had many different plans over the past ten years and the provider networks all seem to be growing -- I think the big guys have aquired all but a few of the smaller insurers -- which has big drawbacks but at least we get to choose from bigger lists of doctors, eh?) and if I cannot purchase the quality of care I want, then I'm willing to go out-of-network even though it's costly, and sacrifices other expenses in my life. Being able to think clearly and feel productive is more important than nearly anything else to me -- so it's not open to compromise in terms of quality.
Hope you find an affordable team that you can trust - good luck, Jennifer.LBW
poster:Leighwit
thread:60631
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010417/msgs/60699.html