Counseling or Psychiatry - What's Your True Calling?
Let's accept it. Indians are born counselors. You love to be an agony aunt or uncle for that matter, listen to other people's woes and dilemmas, and give your very own tips and tricks to overcome the situation. But what if someone wants ‘professional help'- a sure-shot solution provider? Would you be better off as a professional counselor or a psychiatrist?
Both psychiatrists and clinical psychologists can offer you psychotherapies. Discover your true calling by understanding what these terms really mean:
Clinical Psychologists or Counseling Psychologists:
A Clinical Psychologist or a Counseling Psychologist is a person with a PhD (or at least an M.Phil) degree in Psychology. Psychologists do not prescribe medicines. Instead, they use a range of psychometric tests and other psycho diagnostic techniques to find out their patients' problems, counsel them, and use non-medical psychotherapeutic approaches to cure them. Many psychologists prefer to call themselves behavioral scientists.
Psychiatric Social Worker:
Though few psychiatric social workers dabble in counseling and psychotherapy too, they basically help in rehabilitation of recovering mental patients, and educate families and caregivers of mentally ill people about the mental disorders and how to cope with them in the best possible manner. They also help patients and their families to find the kind of financial and medical services they need. Psychiatric counselors can be good family counselors or marriage counselors.
Psychiatrist:
A psychiatrist either holds an MD degree with specialization in Psychiatry (M.D. Psychiatry) or is an MBBS doctor with a Diploma in Mental Health (DPM) or both. Normally, psychiatrists deal with assessing, diagnosing, treating, and preventing severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia. They have medical licenses and can prescribe medication. They may also conduct physical examination and order lab tests and brain imaging studies, such as MRI and CAT scan, to diagnose a patient.
Trained Counselors:
Trained counselors are in demand everywhere - schools, colleges, offices, NGOs, associations for disabled people, old age homes, anti-drug and anti-alcohol societies, AIDS agencies, and as individual practitioners. They usually have a bachelors or masters degree in Psychology with a degree or diploma in counselling. Trained counselors are like general physicians who are sensitive to people's problems, listen carefully, can swear to confidentiality, have strong empathy for their patients, and can help their patients to clear out their thoughts and make right choices for them.
Counselors who do not have a formal background in psychology and just have a short-term certification in counselling is usually just good enough for first-aid in an emergency situation. For long-term benefits, one needs to visit one of the specialists mentioned above However, they may be a good option for fields such as career counseling where domain knowledge matters more than psychological expertise of a person.
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