Connect
To Top

How to Choose the Right Mental Health Professional for You

There’s no doubt that the majority of the human population had experienced mental illness at some point in our lives. Dealing with stress, pressure, meeting expectations, handling failures and rejection and even fears had stressed our mind more than we acknowledge. In normal circumstances, we’re able to overcome whatever emotional crisis we’re dealing with. We all know that whatever fear, anxiety, or pressure we’re feeling would soon fade. Because that’s what it’s supposed to be, we need to move on and move forward in our lives.

However, there are those people who are trapped inside whatever battle or struggle they’re fighting. The longer they stay and are unable to move forward, the longer they indulge in their mental misery. And when they fell into depression, they are struggling to recover from their mental health illness. We all know that when we’re diagnosed with depression, we should seek help immediately. Whether the help is in a form of a support group or in a form of our family and friends. However, we also recognize that we need to seek professional help from mental health experts too.

However, finding the right mental health professional to help you overcome what you’re experiencing can be a challenging task to do. How can we ensure that our attending physician isn’t only knowledgeable in his or her field of expertise but also compassionate enough to understand what we’re going through and be patient enough to deal with us? We present to you the different types of mental health professionals and their expertise. You should be able to narrow your list after reading this post.

General Practitioners

VILevi/Shutterstock
General Practitioners Can Help You With the Starting Symptoms Of Mental Health Illness

If you’re starting to feel the stress, anxiety, pressure, or you have difficulty in coping up with something, then the first in-line of defense is the GP. General practitioners deal more with psychological issues. All GPs are required to undergo training for mental health that’s why they’re equipped to help you. They can plan ahead your activities, even booking a double appointment to meet with you. They have this so-called Treatment Plan for Mental Health which can help you overcome your current predicament. If you don’t want to seek a GP’s help, you also have the option to go for more direct mental health professionals.

Psychiatrist

New Africa/Shutterstock
Psychiatrist Specializes in Complex Mental Health Issues and Disorders

If you’ve fallen hard into depression, then maybe it’s time for you to seek help from a psychiatrist. It’s because the psychiatrists are experts when it comes to identifying and treating any kind of mental illness. They are equipped with medical and scientific knowledge that allows them to identify a type of mental disorder as well as its complex symptoms and signs. They’re able to correlate the effects of mental health not only in your brain but in your body as well. They’re dealing with three or more branches of Science namely:

  • Biology – they study how the biological factors are affecting your body and mind. Cases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorders fall into this category.
  • Psychology – how your line of thinking and the mental issues you’re currently dealing with that stress your mind.
  • Psychiatry – it addresses the issues you’re dealing with your psyche.
Psychiatrists specializes in mental health

Psychiatrists specialize in mental health

Among the mental health professionals, the psychiatrists are also only that can give prescriptions and medications to the patients. Most psychiatrists dedicated more than a decade of their life in order to study the human brain just to be licensed and practice their profession.

Psychologists

Psychologist, on the other hand, specializes in human behavior, socialism, and interaction. They deal with the issues, external, and internal factors that influence us on how we think, feel, react, learn, and believe. They also deal with patients with depression but they’re more into counseling and giving advice. They specialize in changing your perspective on life. For example, if all you think about are the negativities in your life, they will try to bring out the positive aspects of your life that you’ve failed to acknowledge.

Photographee.eu/Shutterstock
Psychologist Usually Deals with Human and Social Behaviors

Psychologists will teach you how to deal with stress and pressure so that your mind and body can handle and cope with these challenges. They mainly cater those patients who fell into an addiction like substance abuse, alcoholism, etc. What’s great about a psychologist is that they’re not only able to boost the mental health of mentally ill people, they also help those mentally healthy people to become the best version of themselves.

More in Mind & Mental

You must be logged in to post a comment Login