What is the difference between a psychologist, a psychotherapist and a psychiatrist?

• A psychologist holds a University Masters-degree. Psychologists deal with the way the mind works and can specialise in a number of areas, such as mental health, educational and occupational psychology. They are usually not medically qualified and not every psychologist will go on to work with patients. 

• A psychotherapist is a psychologist or a psychiatrist who has an extensive training in a therapeutical field (such as cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, psychodynamic therapy or psychoanalytic therapy). In Germany, a psychotherapist has to complete 1800 hours of supervised clinical residency in an hospital and another 600 hours of residency in a private practice. After graduating, he obtains the Medical State License and is registered.

• A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specialises in preventing, diagnosing, and treating mental illness. He has completed a training as a psychiatric resident. A psychiatrist monitors the effects of mental illness on other physical conditions, such as problems with the heart or high blood pressure. If you are working with a psychiatrist, a lot of the treatment may be focused on medication management. Sometimes medication alone is not enough to treat the mental illness, so that a combination of medication and psychotherapy is needed. 

 

Confidentiality

Trust is the foundation of any successful psychotherapy. As a professional psychologist and psychotherapist, I am bound to my professional ethical standards. This means that everything you share with me during our sessions will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. These confidentiality standards will also aply to personal details as well as records of our sessions.