psychologist or psychiatrist?

[bruhaha180]

hi guys. i am suffering from pre schizoprenia but according to my psychiatrist it is treatable so he gave me medication and it is efective but the problem is the medication is expensive that is why i want to shift from a psychiatrist to a psychologist. i consulted a psychologist and she tells me that she can handle my situation but what she can only do is counseling and psychotherapy, she can't dispense medication.

do you think psychologist will help me? which is more therapeutic, psychologist or psychiatrist?

[bruhaha180]

thank you very much. actually i do not know much about my diagnosis all i know it is the stage leading to schizo but according to my psychiatrist it is treatable by psychotherapy but in able to undergo such therapy it is pre requisite that those signs and symptoms should not be existing anymore for the therapy to be effective. what i like about psychologist is that he does a different kind of therapy which is effective even the symptoms is present.

by the way i am suffering from hallucination. a sign of pre schizo

[Paxiled]

By the way, I'm only saying this because this pre-schizophrenia diagnosis sounds a bit bogus to me.  If you truly have schizophrenia, you have to be on medication no matter what age you are, and there are many meds, not just one.  If it isn't really schizophrenia but just a description of your symptoms, such as is the case with bipolar 2 and other bipolars which really aren't bipolar at all, they are just descriptions of symptoms.  As far as I know, you're either schizophrenic or you're not, bipolar or you're not, but psychiatrists need these definitions in order to get reimbursement from insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies need all these diagnoses to sell drugs, so they have proliferated over the last few years, and it matters a lot as to what treatments are possible and appropriate.

[Paxiled]

They go together.  A psychiatrist is only useful, really, if you want to use medication.  That depends on how severe the disruption to your life is.  Some psychiatrists do talk therapy, but most don't anymore -- they make a lot more money doling out pills.  But the purpose of medication is to mitigate symptoms.  If there is a cure, it comes through talk therapy, where you actually work on either the sources of your problems or on techniques to overcome them or both.  That's generally done through psychologists, mainly because they're less expensive to see than psychiatrists and, as I said, most psychiatrist don't do talk therapy anymore, and psychologist actually get a whole lot more schooling in psychology than psychiatrists do.  No guarantees here.  I also can't believe there's only one med for an 18 year old, but you also have to decide if medication is necessary at this stage, and even if it is, you should be in talk therapy so you don't have to stay on medication forever.  Good luck.

[bruhaha180]

pre schizoprenic form is a mild form of schizoprenia if i am not mistaken. it is also treatable by med and psychotherapy. i just want to ask you something, have you consulted a psychologist and a psychiatrist? who helps you more?

[bruhaha180]

thank you. i already talk to my psychiatrist and he told me that the med he is giving me(the one which is expensive) is the only med appropriate for my age, i am 18 yrs old.

[Paxiled]

What in the world is pre-schizophenia?  Have they invented still another disorder?  For talk therapy, psychologists are better trained and cheaper to see, but unless they get their lobbying wish and the power to dispense meds, that's for now confined to medical docs, which includes psychiatrists.

[nikkie1580]

Both are helpful in different ways you do need meds and will always need meds and counseling helps to i would talk to your psychiatrist and tell the meds are expensive maybe there a less expesive med or a program that will help you pay fo them