A Therapist Vs. Psychologist

Content/Trigger Warning: Please be advised, the below article might mention trauma-related topics handled with a therapist or psychologist that include sexual assault & violence which could potentially be triggering.

Want to Understand The Difference Between A Counselor vs Therapist?

When it comes to getting help for the problems in our lives and improving them, there are licensed mental health professionals (therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, etc.) who can help with therapy. If you want to find a therapist or are seeking help from an online therapist, knowing mental health care titles can be imperative to your success. This article should help you clarify the difference between a therapist meaning, a psychologist, and other behavioral health providers.

Different Types

Get The Right Licensed Professional For Your Needs

Finding the right licensed professional therapist to help you begin your therapeutic process is no easy task. Understanding the difference between a psychiatrist vs therapist is a research task in and of itself. The good news is that there are mental health care professionals dedicated to providing good therapy and realistic solutions to dealing with life's daily problems, and likely a therapist in your town. Most mental health care providers provide a free consultation to discuss your thoughts and feelings so you can find a therapist that works well for you. 

You have the right to see a therapist or mental health provider who suits your needs. Many people feel overwhelmed when it comes to the topic of dealing with their mental health issues, which is completely understandable. Finding the right therapist, taking time out of the workday to drive to an appointment, sitting in a waiting room full of strangers - are all reasons people feel overwhelmed when thinking about seeking mental health care. This is where online therapy comes in (discussed in more detail later). Common issues addressed by a therapist or psychologist include:

• Anger management issues
• Binge eating disorders
• Depression treatment
• Stress management
• Substance abuse
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Participating in professional therapy (with a licensed therapist) will help you to mitigate the pains associated with the issues above, and other problems including depression, anxiety, stress, PTSD, self-esteem, and anger. Finding the right therapist is critical to beginning to learn how to manage your thoughts and feelings to change your life. They can provide you with resources, tips, and advice to help your day-to-day challenges. 

A good psychologist will explain the therapeutic process step-by-step along with their preferred method of therapy. When you begin to search for therapists through organizations, take note of what preferred methods your chosen provider subscribes to. Verify that your health provider is licensed to practice by visiting your state licensing board online. You can learn more about your chosen therapist or mental health care provider by paying attention to their online presence in the form of websites and social reviews when you go online to find a therapist.

Cognitive Behavioral 

• You discard or dismiss the bad thoughts associated with anxiety and depression.
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy helps the side effects of anxiety and depression as well, such as insomnia and going out of routine.
• By practicing it regularly, CBT becomes your mindset. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems don't stand a chance. 

You will learn more about the difference between a psychologist and a therapist as we delve deeper into these two professions in this article.

Psychologists

A therapist can encompass any number of different professions including social work. The term therapist has often been used to encompass social workers and a variety of counselors. Because of this, they may hold a degree in various fields including an MD, Ph.D., or master's.

There are many kinds of therapists and mental health experts out there with a variety of credentials and expertises. Some provide therapy with adults, while others work with young people. Children can benefit from therapy, and so can grownups. Therapy with adults is talked about more than pediatric counseling. However, both are valuable.

While they may also provide guidance and support, a therapist's function is different based on their area of expertise and their level of qualifications. Let's look at different types of therapists in more detail.

Therapist Different Types

We should mention that there are many types of therapists and licensed professional counselors, all of which cover different aspects of mental health. To find the right therapist, learn more about what methods are a good fit for your situation.

Don't be afraid to ask specific questions while you're in the process of finding the right therapist. Ask your prospective therapist about their history of helping people overcome issues that you're struggling with. Inquire about their preferred treatment methods. You may learn that you perform better as a member of a therapy group vs. participating in one-on-one talk therapy sessions with a therapist. A good therapist tells the difference between the two and can recommend which one would be better to treat your mental health concerns. They may also be able to provide a referral to another therapist with a speciality applicable to your situation.

Below are a few examples of therapists that practice in the United States based on the types of therapy they provide.

The Family

Family therapy or family counseling covers adults, couples, and families. Family therapy involves a therapist helping a family, or a group of people like a family, deal with the many issues they may have. Family therapists provide social work-related services, couple therapy, and couples counseling in family counseling centers. Examples of what family therapy covers include:

• People feel overwhelmed at times when dealing with a mentally ill family member. The therapist may help the family member with mental illness learn how to control themselves better, or they may help the other family members with managing a mental illness.
• Teaching adults, couples, and families ways they can manage conflict. Families are going to fight quite a lot, and a family therapist may be able to help fighting families manage their conflicts without resorting to domestic violence or other unhealthy coping mechanisms.
• Family therapists may include social workers too. You may have an idea what a social worker is, but there are many misconceptions about them. Social workers tend to look at their families and see if any problems need to be managed. Licensed clinical social workers don't have to be someone who takes the kids away, despite what the social worker's reputation tends to be. A social worker can be someone who helps the family grow stronger.

Overall, family therapists are great for adults, couples, and families by providing new ways to implement acceptance and commitment therapy strategies into everyday life.

Marriage

• Mental health. A marriage family therapist may help a couple handle one member's bipolar disorder, or if they both have bipolar disorder, the therapist can help each other manage it together.
• Another thing a marriage family therapist may do is help solve communication problems. Often, relationships break apart not because of any malicious issue, but because both parties don't know how to communicate properly. When you misconstrue words, it can end up causing fights and other drama. A marriage family therapist helps the two parties with that and with any other problems they may face.
• Finances may be covered by the therapist. This is the king of relationship problems, with many couples breaking apart their marriage due to financial dishonesty or spending too much. While a marriage family therapist isn't an accountant, they can help people be more financially honest, by teaching them how to save money, how to communicate spending, and dealing with any mental health issues that could cause excessive spending.
• A marriage family therapist can help with other problems as well. Give couple's counseling or couples therapy a try today.

You may feel like your relationship is too toxic to even bother with hiring a marriage family therapist, but you'll be surprised. Relationships that are not just on the rocks but falling off the edge have seen amazing recoveries in the past thanks to finding the right clinical social work therapist or marriage family therapist. You're likely to get a sense for their impact within your first couple of sessions.

Substance

Grief

One of the many mental health services a therapist can offer is dealing with grief and loss. A therapist of this caliber can help you cope with losing your friends and family, be it an untimely death or a family member with a long battle with cancer or another fatal illness. You can learn more about the grieving process, including the realization that it's not so black and white, and you can learn not to "get over" the loss of your friend or family member, but learn how to continue without them. Find a therapist who specializes in dealing with grief and loss if you feel stuck or unable to move on in your grieving process.

Child/Adolescent

A child and adolescent therapist does just what the title says it does. A therapist with this specialty helps children, adolescents, and their families cope with the many family problems and family conflicts one may face in the early years. For children, they may have behavioral issues such as borderline personality, learning disabilities, family problems, and dealing with schools and grades. For adolescents, there are many problems as well: feeling anxious over growing pains, feeling anxious about what comes after high school, getting a job, managing relationships, and so much more. A therapist can help with all of these.

Children, adolescents, and adults need a good talking to if they want to solve their behavioral health-related problems. A therapist is skilled at helping people and can counsel young children to elderly adults. For many parents, empathizing with children, adolescents, or even a young adult is a challenge, and a therapist in this category knows how to do it.

Divorce

Another therapist one may talk to is a divorce therapist. Sometimes a marriage counselor or a family counselor isn't enough, and the couple has decided to divorce. Divorce therapists can give divorcing couples therapy and they are skilled at helping people navigate the rocky waters of divorce.

• They may use the collaborative process. The collaborative process is a divorce method that involves working with a therapist or other pro to come up with an agreement. Settling things in court is expensive and emotionally exhausting. The collaborative process is designed to help everyone reach an amicable agreement. If you can control your dislike for your spouse, the collaborative process with a therapist may be worth trying.
• A divorce therapist can help you work out any trauma you may have had, such as intimate partner violence.

Group

Group therapy involves helping people in a large group with others who have similar problems. You may find therapists through your insurance plan who provide group therapy. Group therapy can help participants feel free to discuss their issues and solutions for treatment with like-minded individuals.

• Behavioral health problems. Group therapy may teach others how to manage how they talk to others, how they control their emotions, and all other aspects of behavioral health.
• Relationship issues. You can feel free to vent to others about any relationship issues you may have. Then, the other parties may talk about theirs. Venting feels nice, and after you let it all out, you can help one another come up with solutions to any relationship issues you may have.
• When you work with adults who are on the same page, you can come up with creative solutions.

The Social Work Therapist

A clinical social work therapist, or social worker, is commonly associated with families, but they also work with groups of people and the community at large. A clinical social work therapist can help everyone with their well-being and how they perform. Social work therapists are skilled at what they do. Clinical social work therapists provide services for many different populations. They often work in the community with families.

Everyone has a different social role or job, and a clinical social work therapist can help you enhance your life by quite a bit. Clinical social work therapists help patients cope with issues of depression, addiction, and provide coping skills for managing depressive disorders like post-traumatic stress. A social work therapist can work in a clinic, nonprofit, or private practice.

Related Issues

Injury

A brain injury can make it harder to function in your daily life, but with just one phone call to the right professional counselor, you can begin to see positive results. Sometimes, a brain injury can be reversed, but you need to talk to the right therapist and begin building a strong therapeutic alliance to create positive change in your life.

Contact your health insurance plan provider to find the right therapist in your price range who can help you deal with recovering from brain injury-related issues. Health insurance providers like Blue Cross offer mental health services as a part of their behavioral health plans. You may also seek advice from your primary care physician on a therapist in your network or one that can help with injuries like these. 

Testing

You can request psychological testing from any of these behavioral health professionals. If you suspect you have a mental health condition, psychological testing can help. Often, there are criteria you must follow to request psychological testing. Sometimes, you may end up with a dual diagnosis, where mental health conditions overlap. A licensed therapist can help you choose the right method of therapy for managing a dual diagnosis.

Forensics

Care

Psychotherapy

Comparisons

Therapists also undergo training and need to meet strict requirements to obtain their licenses. A therapist is someone who can counsel, advise and help you with feelings and decisions within a structured support network. As discussed above, therapists might include marriage or relationship counselors or those who work with social care to help people with disabilities adjust. You can also find specialists who work with certain methods like drama therapists or speech therapists under this banner.

A psychologist may also be involved with the APA, or American Psychological Association. This is one of the largest groups of psychologists in the United States. The APA has over 100,000 members and offers a find a therapist featured on their website. 

Hopefully, this helps to clarify the difference between the two titles. There are so many initials and letters out there that it's often hard to know the difference between one type of therapist vs. another. When searching for the right professional for you, research is important; that way you know your therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist or counselor has the right tools to help you. All of these qualified professionals have clinical experience and are there to serve as a listening ear and provide you with the tools to help treat mental health concerns, emotional problems, and emotional health concerns. A mental health service like BetterHelp gives you a range of professionals to choose from, all from the comfort and privacy of your own home.

Can Psychologists Prescribe Medication?

Neither psychologists nor therapists prescribe medications; however, in certain states, they can. Since psychiatrists can prescribe medication, both psychologists and therapists usually work alongside them in situations where treatment plans require both talk therapy and medication. Both are likely more than willing to provide referrals to the other as well.

Except for the rare instances in which psychiatrists provide psychotherapy, visits with a psychiatrist are usually only 15-minute medication checks. During this short time, the psychologist or therapist can explain the client's symptoms succinctly, and in more clinical terms than the client can. This allows the client to get the most out of that brief visit and also feel heard and seen while still maintaining privacy for the challenges they may be facing.

Cost

Cost is a critical factor to consider when seeking therapy. A psychologist's fee may be as high as that of an M.D. psychiatrist. Therapists may charge a wide range of fees. Some therapists are affordable for anyone, while others may charge exorbitant fees. The therapists at BetterHelp charge fees that are about the same as typical co-pays through your insurance company, such as Blue Cross, Blue Shield.

You have a lot to consider as you make your selection of the type of professional you want to see. Your insurance may limit these choices, but otherwise, it's up to you to decide. The first thing you need to do is to think about the issues you want to address. Then, seek out both psychologists and therapists in your area who specialize in these issues. Make sure to consider the cost of treatment, whether you'd like to meet in an office or online, as well as reviews from other clients, before pursuing the initial consultation.

This can take a lot of research and time if you plan to see someone in your local community. The information you need to compile to choose between all your options might be scattered across the internet. However, if you decide to talk to a counselor on BetterHelp.com, each of these professionals has a profile that lists facts about their education (Master's Degree or Doctorate Degree), experience, interests, and speciality areas.

Counselors on BetterHelp are licensed, trained, and accredited psychologists (Ph.D./PsyD), marriage and family therapists (MFTs), clinical social workers (LCSW/LMSW), or licensed professional counselors (LPCs). All of them have a Masters's Degree or a Doctorate Degree in their field. They also all possess at least three years and 2,000 hours of hands-on experience. BetterHelp online therapists come from a wide array of different backgrounds, life experiences, beliefs, and cultures. Read below for some reviews of BetterHelp online therapy counselors, from people experiencing different issues and life challenges.

Reviews

"Dr. Kogan amazingly knows how to respond to my concerns in a level of detail that I'm looking for without setting off any of my triggers. She has never, not once, made me more angry or upset about something than I already was initially. Many things irritate me, so this is not a feat to be taken lightly. I feel like I have more insight from a few months of working with her compared to my aggregate progress from years of working with various other therapists."

"Dr. Barriteau is extremely warm and easy to talk to as well as extremely professional. It seems to be that you get one or the other with many counselors: they're either very professional but closed off or impersonal, or they're very sympathetic and familiar but as a result seem unprofessional. I'm impressed by her ability to navigate that narrow middle ground where she can be both easy to talk to and also trustworthy and helpful. I am comfortable sharing my concerns with her and feel supported and understood. She is an excellent counselor."

Psychology Conclusion

FAQs