Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
If you have access to a Nurse Practitioner, they can be a great resource as well.
I got referred to one through my family Dr and it turned out she actually worked out of my existing Dr's office a few days a week.
She was able to prescribe medication and had more expertise in the way that you'd expect a psychiatrist to have. That isn't to say she gave counseling, just that she was better at diagnosing mental health stuff than a regular family dr for whom mental health diagnosis' are not his specialty. She was able to in turn refer me to a behavior specialist. Behavior therapist? Psychologist? I don't remember the exact title.
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Some mixed advice here, but the best advice is to use trained professionals who have training and expertise in their specific field of study.
Nurse practitioners are very popular here in the US. They are registered nurses (RN) who have completed their master's degree and have a minimum of 500 hours of clinical time under an attending physician. They can prescribe specific drugs, but their specialty is the care of sick people. There is no residency requirement for nurse practitioners. It should be noted that they are below the physician assistant in the pecking order, who have greater education, clinical and residency requirements. A nurse practitioner is someone you go to see if you have a general malady like a cold or a rash. Anything more and you should go to an actual physician who are trained in the study of disease. These professionals usually recognize the areas where they are trained to practice and will refer you to someone who has the expertise rather than try and do something that could put their license at risk.
To the OP I would highly recommend that you do not take counseling advice from a nurse practitioner. They are not trained in anything more than general psychology (minimal exposure) and are not licensed to counsel. So you understand the field, there are 54 divisions of psychological study accredited by the American Psychological Association, and each of those divisions is very focused on a specific aspect of psychology. To say you need to speak to a psychologist is casting a pretty large net. All psychologists have a solid grounding in psychology and worth talking to, but it is their deep dive subject matter where they are experts. It sounds like you need a behaviorist or a clinician, but I would recommend you start with a licensed counselor. Once you speak with one of these folks they will be best situated to refer you to specialist or possibly even a psychiatrist. For clarity, a psychiatrist is a psychologist who has gone on to complete medical training from an accredited medical school, completed usually two years of internship under a licensed psychiatrist and then has done a three year residency in mental health disorders. These are the folks that can prescribe drugs.
To make a long explanation short, start with a licensed counselor and they can make a determination of whether you need to see a psychiatrist or if you just need to work through some issues with a specialist like a behaviorist. Good luck. Sometimes a chat with a counselor is all that people need.
