Psychologist and psychotherapist professions

In many countries there is a widespread opinion that the best “psychologist” is a close friend: he always listens, understands, advises how to deal with a difficult situation. In some cases it is enough to reduce emotional stress and to feel support. Why then do psychologists exist, and how is their work more effective than a friendly conversation?

The fact is that the human mind is able to analyze complex interactions and patterns, but is not able to abstract from the problem if it has a personal nature. So, for example, a friend with a negative experience of family life will unconsciously transfer his experience into a conversation about the relationship between spouses. The person may constantly face repetitive problems, complaining about fate, without noticing that the cause of the difficult situation is him/herself and his/her attitudes. This is where a professional psychologist is needed. A specialist who provides psychological help based on a scientific approach.

Psychologist
This is a fairly broad concept, approximately the same as a manager. As a rule, it is a person who has received a psychological education and is therefore familiar with the general laws of the functioning of the human psyche.

This category includes all sorts of things – the reaction to stress, behavior in the team, the typology of thought and other issues of an applied nature. In fact, they are engaged in a psychologist – he can help in the selection of staff, to advise on the proper organization of communication or workplace, to engage in general personal diagnosis.

Psychotherapist
This is a person who is trained in psychotherapy (which, in theory, is one of the fields of psychology – but belongs to it just as, say, endocrinology belongs to medicine).

A psychologist cannot practice psychotherapy if he/she has not undergone profile retraining. A psychotherapist is a profession that deals with very subtle and specific infusions of the human psyche: the relationship with people, with one’s own desires, with the unconscious – and how all this affects one’s daily life.

Example.
A psychologist is quite capable of calming a woman or a man after a divorce. However, the psychologist is not able to understand why this divorce has happened, why it brings so much pain and why this is not the first such divorce in a person’s life. This is what a psychotherapist does.

Does a psychotherapist have to have a medical degree? There is no unequivocal answer on this issue in our country (and in the world in general). The profession of a psychotherapist is considered medical and requires appropriate education. In Europe, for example, in France and Germany, psychotherapists are considered a separate, self-sufficient profession and do not require a medical background.

Advocates of each approach are right in their own way. We can only recall Freud, who advised his students not to waste time on medical education and to immediately proceed with the study of psychoanalysis.

Psychiatrist
It is a doctor. He has a medical degree – and therefore a full understanding of how the brain works, both organically and psychiatrically.

As a rule, a psychiatrist deals with applied things – say, if you are suffering from panic attacks, he will talk to you, diagnose you and prescribe pills if necessary.

However, a good psychiatrist understands that panic attacks are not only and not so much due to organic causes, but are the result of some internal mental conflicts. For this reason, he can send you to a psychotherapist – to look for them, be aware of them and try to understand what caused them. (Similarly, the psychotherapist, when he realizes that a client’s condition is so acute that talking alone will not help him, often sends him to a psychiatrist).

Thus, the psychotherapist and psychiatrist often work in pairs – the first deals with the person’s accumulated inner resentment, pain and anger, and the second monitors his overall mental state and tweaks it with the help of medication.