THERAPY OR PSYCHIATRY: WHAT'S THE BEST CHOICE FOR YOU?

‘Therapy’ is a colloquial word that stands short for one of the many talk-therapy based processes out there in the world, including psychiatry. Psychiatry therefore is a form of talk-therapy, but unlike psychotherapy or counselling it is empowered, or disempowered, depending on how you view medication, by the use of prescribed medication. Psychiatrists are medical doctors who specialized, later in their educational career, in mental health medicine, but unlike psychologists they have a medical bias towards seeing wellness or illness in terms of chemical balances or imbalances. To rectify this chemical imbalance, psychiatrists base their recommendations, or at least largely include in them, the use of medication. Psychiatry is therefore fundamentally different in outlook from psychology, because it sees human happiness and suffering in terms of a positivistic view, meaning, in terms of a broken machine that needs of fixing.

Psychology based talk-therapists

 Do not have a medical background and are therefore more inclined to see clients holistically, rather than reductively through the lens of hormones, organ malfunctions, chemical imbalances or other.

To give a final read out on whether an issue belongs to the world of psychiatry or psychology is basically impossible, because dependent on so many different variables, including your belief system, the kind of medicines that are available in your country, your finances, your physiological tolerance or intolerance and so on. 

Psychiatry, or medicine based talk-therapy interventions, however, are often desirable when mental and emotional states bring about severe levels of dysfunction, such as suicidal states, severe obsessions, hallucinations, personality splits and the like. 

Psychotherapy, on the other hand, is more attuned with problems that render life less enjoyable and more painful, but that do not threaten the basic functioning of a person.

Psychological issues can degenerate, so referring a client that is receiving psychology based talk-therapy to a psychiatrist can occur when psychological interventions have failed to ameliorate the client’s condition. In other words, clients of psychology based talk-therapists may end up needing medical support. A client’s past history, genetics, and environmental conditions can all contribute to this degeneration, and so the use of medicine can sometimes offset, at least temporarily, the parameters that the clients cannot control as yet.

I am personally neither in favor nor against the use of medication, and base my recommendations on a case by case basis. In my experience with clients from all different parts of the world, however, I have noticed that the use of medication is often related to cultural and economic upbringing, and so I often want to discuss the way in which the client’s culture and economic background is influencing their views of their issues and solutions to them. In either case, I respect the wish of the client, seeing medication as that which the client decides is needed or not needed at present to feel better, and accompanying them in navigating all the other parameters of influence to their wellbeing is what I do.

Look after your Heart,

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