harrie

I was seen the other day by a psychiatrist after a referral by my GP. We
spoke for about an hour about the thinks my GP had identified as important,
mainly my now severe depression and my conversations with her on the
subject of suicide, something that was,I felt, soon to become a reality. I
was put on antidepressants, which have taken away the sharpness but not the
full feelings. Anyway the point is that the psychiatrist said that I was
not mentally ill but had a lot of "mental problems". My question is what is
the guidelines to mental illness, when is a person mentally ill or just
someone with "problems"? Although I do not class myself as being mentally
ill I did feel somewhat let down as yet another person was telling me they
were unable to help and another referral to a psychologist this time.
Another question might be what is the difference b/w the two professions,
do psychologists not deal with mental illness and psychiatrists never deal
with "problems"?

liam nevin

Well I do psychology in college and we've been told that any form of mental
problems e.g. depression,thinking of suicide etc is a mental illness and our
psychology tutor is a registered psychologist with the BPS

I'm not much help but that is some information for you

LIAM

clubfoot

Harrie,

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that I am NOT a health care specialist and what I'm
telling you is simply what I can remember from the Psyc. classes that I took
in college a decade ago.
To answer a couple of your questions;
(1) When diagnosing mental disorders a psychiatrist or psychologist will
usually consult a book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders' or DSM. This is a guide book of disorders which gives the
psyc. a general description of disorders which he/she can use as a baseline
or starting point. It is NOT a definitive book of specifics, i.e. the psyc.
can't simply consult the book and say, "O.K. John Doe has all the symptoms
on the check list for XYZ disorder so John HAS XYZ." It doesn't work that
way. A lot is open to interpretation. An experienced psyc. (either type) is
needed to figure if what you are going through is actually XYZ disorder or
is it a case of you having a number of underlying "issues" which manifest
themselves in ways that mimic the symptoms of XYZ disorder.
(2) As for the differences between a psychologist and a psychiatrist, a
psychiatrist is someone who has a lot of the same training and education as
a psychologist but, also has medical training and can prescribe medication,
antidepressants and so forth.

Most likely your GP referred you to the psychiatrist first so that she could
prescribe the antidepressants. As to why you were then referred next to a
psychologist rather than continuing with the psychiatrist, it could be any
of hundreds of reasons. I won't even venture to guess.

I hope this has helped a little.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harrie" <HarrieNOSPAMgard@netscape.net>
Newsgroups: alt.psychology
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 12:38 PM
Subject: Mentally ill or not??


important,

the


is

ryubyss

how about go here for some helpful information?

http://www.antipsychiatry.org