What Gala says is true, Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology are often used and confused with each other. I'm studiying psychology as a whole of which clinical psychology is one sub discipline. The difference between the two apart from one being a medical training and not the other is that at the end of my three bachelor years and one master year I'll know more about psychology then psychiatrists do. Psychiatry is a specialisation course after you've done your seven years or whatever of medical taining. That means in two years they cover a much narrower field of study then psychologists do, even within the sub discipline of clinical psychology. They also take a medical approach towards treating mental illness which means that they rather treat the the symptoms (with drugs ) then the actual cause of the problem. I don't know if traditional medical thinking has evolved in the last 10 years but the view doctors have of mental ilnesses is that of any other injury or sickness, in that it has a fysiological origin. Therefore if you can't see the desease in body tissue or organs then the desease does not exist. Or if the symptoms are seen in the body they are treated successfully but are not 'cured' . They will return because the root problem isn't always fysiological.
Psychologists take a different vieuw. They see most mental illnesses as psychosomatic. Meaning that what causes alot of mental illnesses is a cognitive or emotional problem that then manifests itself as a fysiological problem. Cure the emotional or cognitive problem and you automatically take away the symptoms. So in other words when someone has a depression and therefor gets frequent headaches or nausea a psychiatrist will most likely perscribe an anti depressant and a painkiller, a psychologist won't (partly because they aren't allowed to by law). He will use therapy to sort out the depression, thereby taking away the headaches and nausea linked to that depression.
Ofcourse both psychiatry and psychology have their advantages and disadvantages and for some illnesses you're better of with one then the other. But more and more you see both disciplines working together now in hospitals and mental institutions.
Not to be confused with the above professions is pscychotherapy. Psychotherapists are poeple that did not get their degree at a university.
And to answer Bani's question about the Open university. There are two or three subjects on my course that require me to go to seminars and 'interact' with other poeple. Therapy being one of them. In my master's year there are alot of internships, i believe they are called ,( stages for the dutch speaking amongst us) and after my master's if I want to be a clinical psychologist in Holland i need to do an internship of three years. In Belgium it is one year. So that's plenty of time for me to interact with patients.
Sorry I made this post so long and offtopic, just thought this needed to be clarified :shy:
