[iamverysad]

Hello. I suffer from depression, agoraphobia and obsessions. Should I visit a psychologist or a psychiatrist? I have never searched for help before.

[88Butterfly88]

A psychologist is for therapy whereas a psychiatrist is for meds. Personally I would reccommend both.

[maybeblue]

Do you have a family doctor? If so I would probably start there. He or she might be able to get you in sooner than a psychiatrist could. GPs will often start you on medication too. Medication does tend to work faster than talk therapy, but might not be as permanent. In any case, ask your GP for a referral to a therapist. If you don't have a GP, you could start with a therapist and see if he or she thinks that meds might be helpful. If so the therapist will probably know of a psychiatrist.

Also, you are going to want to make sure that the therapist is a good fit for you. I find it much more important that I like a therapist than that I like a doctor. Most studies show that the relationship is very important in therapy. So if you don't care for the first one that you see, try another one.

[LabRat27]

I agree that both is the best idea. The first step is usually to look for who takes your insurance. Most major insurance companies allow you to search for in network providers through their website. It's a good way to get a list of potential providers, and you can Google them to find out more and pick one.
If you don't have any strong preferences, I find it helpful to go to a business that has multiple providers, that way I only have to deal with one office, and the psychiatrists know the therapists so often you can get a suggestion for who might be a good match. I found my therapist through a referral from my psychiatrist after telling him the qualities I was looking for in a therapist.

[ElectricManatee]

In general in the mental health field, a psychologist is a person with a doctoral degree who does talk therapy. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor whose primary focus is prescribing and monitoring medications to treat mental health concerns. (Some psychiatrists do talk therapy too, but I think that's pretty rare these days.) There are also plenty of people who have masters degrees and are qualified to do therapy (social workers, licensed mental health counselors, etc).

Maybeblue has some good suggestions about getting started. If you don't have a general practitioner or you don't want to go to them, you can also look at therapists on the Psychology Today therapist finder. Then you can contact a few for initial phone conversations to see if they might be a good fit.

Do you have a sense of whether you're more interested in talk therapy or medication? Often people respond best when they do both, but some people have preferences or hesitations. Either way, good for you for taking the first step to getting help. I hope you get hooked up with some professionals who can help you to start feeling better.

[iamverysad]

Im thinking of starting with a psychiatrist. I have tried a lot many years to make my mind think positively but i cannot achieve that. I have depression and I think that this is the reason why I have agoraphobia and obsessions. Drugs would help me to be more happy.

[iamverysad]

I receive 5 drops of seropram every night (only after my meal). As time passes, does someone need more doses?

[onceuponacat]

I feel like people have mentioned the basics already, so I just want to throw out a book suggestion - Agoraphobia by Claire Weekes, it wasn't the main resource that helped me get better, but when I was agoraphobic it definitely made me feel understood and hopeful for the future.

And just as an alternative perspective, my current therapist seems to view agoraphobia as being a freeze response to trauma, so if you can find a therapist that deals with trauma, that might be helpful.

It takes a lot of guts to go get help, I hope you can find the resources that you need to get better.

[iamverysad]

Thank you. What do you mean "deals with trauma"?

[Ididitmyway]

A psychologist will talk to you, a psychiatrist would, most likely, prescribe meds. You, as a consumer, need to understand the risk and limitations vs the benefits of both and then decide. Also, neither approach gives any guarantee that your conditions will drastically improve.

Meds would mostly take care of the symptoms. They will not deal with the underlying case of your feelings.

Talk therapy might try to get to the underlying cause but might not necessarily "cure" it.

[BudFox]

I recommend trying a functional medicine physician, or naturopathic physician. They are trained to look for root causes in all areas, and to view the body as a unified whole, and in my experience you are much more likely to get to the bottom of things. Depression can come from many physiological factors.

[iamverysad]

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

A psychologist will talk to you, a psychiatrist would, most likely, prescribe meds. You, as a consumer, need to understand the risk and limitations vs the benefits of both and then decide. Also, neither approach gives any guarantee that your conditions will drastically improve.

Meds would mostly take care of the symptoms. They will not deal with the underlying case of your feelings.

Talk therapy might try to get to the underlying cause but might not necessarily "cure" it.

I think that a talk therapy will not cure it. I wake up at morning and feel depressed. I feel terrible all day without a reason. This is genetics.

[BudFox]

Please don't buy into the genetics brainwashing. It's about environment, aka epigenetics. The environment can switch gene expression on and off. Genes by themselves tell you very little about mental and physical health. To get to the bottom of a given affliction, you need functional testing, holistic clinical assessment, and committed medical detective work.

Things like hypothyroidism or severe mineral deficiency or leaky gut syndrome or sleep disorder... these things can cause severe depression, and they can be addressed, and it's not necessary to look at genetics.

Or simply switching off wifi and mobile phone at night, and avoiding bright lights can be life changing.

[Rive1976]

Well if you only have a choice of seeing one see a psychiatrist. They will talk with you a little although maybe not as much as a psychologist and they can prescribe meds. Good Psychiatrist talk with you and prescribe meds but sadly most of them talk about 15 minutes and write a script. I had one that was awesome and talked to me forever and gave me meds. Do you live on the East Coast?

Well, I say hold on here. I see a psychiatrist and I would describe our sessions as therapeutic. Mind you, I get to see him for 90min where I know of people who merely see their own for perhaps ten. I undertook a 3mos CBT course and this too was directed by a psychiatrist (beneficial by the way).

What reccomendation do I have for you? I would get a referral from your family doctor for a psychiatrist. This professional can make a diagnosis and prescribe medication (which I believe are a good thing). This psychiatrist can in turn make a referral - or at least some recommendations - to a psychologist appropriate to your specific needs. My opinion here? I am not so sure that shopping around for a professional is the right thing to do. If you have been seeing the same family doctor for some length of time they know you. They would have some idea then of who might be best for you to see based on how you present. Similarly, a psychiatrist can make the same evvaluation when it comes to suggesting a psychologist.

Good luck!

[iamverysad]

Originally Posted by BudFox

Please don't buy into the genetics brainwashing. It's about environment, aka epigenetics. The environment can switch gene expression on and off. Genes by themselves tell you very little about mental and physical health. To get to the bottom of a given affliction, you need functional testing, holistic clinical assessment, and committed medical detective work.

Things like hypothyroidism or severe mineral deficiency or leaky gut syndrome or sleep disorder... these things can cause severe depression, and they can be addressed, and it's not necessary to look at genetics.

Or simply switching off wifi and mobile phone at night, and avoiding bright lights can be life changing.

I think that if someone has gene to be tall with blue eyes, environment is not of utmost importance.. Same thing with depression..

[iamverysad]

Originally Posted by Dnester

Well if you only have a choice of seeing one see a psychiatrist. They will talk with you a little although maybe not as much as a psychologist and they can prescribe meds. Good Psychiatrist talk with you and prescribe meds but sadly most of them talk about 15 minutes and write a script. I had one that was awesome and talked to me forever and gave me meds. Do you live on the East Coast?

No mate.. unfortunately.. What meds have you taken by him?

[iamverysad]

Originally Posted by justafriend306

Well, I say hold on here. I see a psychiatrist and I would describe our sessions as therapeutic. Mind you, I get to see him for 90min where I know of people who merely see their own for perhaps ten. I undertook a 3mos CBT course and this too was directed by a psychiatrist (beneficial by the way).

What reccomendation do I have for you? I would get a referral from your family doctor for a psychiatrist. This professional can make a diagnosis and prescribe medication (which I believe are a good thing). This psychiatrist can in turn make a referral - or at least some recommendations - to a psychologist appropriate to your specific needs. My opinion here? I am not so sure that shopping around for a professional is the right thing to do. If you have been seeing the same family doctor for some length of time they know you. They would have some idea then of who might be best for you to see based on how you present. Similarly, a psychiatrist can make the same evvaluation when it comes to suggesting a psychologist.

Good luck!

Thank you. Thats the right thing to do.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by iamverysad

I think that if someone has gene to be tall with blue eyes, environment is not of utmost importance.. Same thing with depression..

This guys knows what he is talking about...

"While there may be genetic predispositions towards depression and addiction, a predisposition is not the same as a predetermination. A predisposition increases the risk of something occurring but it cannot by itself cause it to happen. The key factor is the environment. Genes are activated or turned off by the environment"
-- Gabor Mate MD

[iamverysad]

I dont think talk therapy helps a lot... I think it is gene.. Only medication helps.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

I personally also see a psychiatrist who sees me for an hour a week and talks to me a whole lot and it is therapeutic, and helps. But for the kind of issues I have there is no actual known medication to help. I have never been given any meds by him (but have by two others before him).
He once suggested maybe some anti-depressants would help with some sleep issues I experience, but we both dropped that decision after talking for just 2 minutes about my sleep. So I basically see someone who could prescribe me meds at any time if necessary, but he also knows me well enough to tell whether I actually need them, whether it's going to be useful for me (I would get addicted to benzos in an instance for example).
It doesn't matter whether it's genetics or not, for some things there are known medications to help. For others there are none. This is true both in the physical and mental world.

I think it is best to have people work together on medication + talk therapy, either have both of them in one person, or see both at the same time and have them communicate. Because for some things there are meds, and for some there are none. And we here do not know you and do not know about everything you are experiencing, and we can't tell you which of the two or whether both are going to help you.

[mostlylurking]

iamverysad, genes also can make you more likely to be deficient in certain nutrients. If you really feel you are depressed with no known reason -- you feel you had a happy childhood, you had a loving parent(s), you like yourself okay, but somehow you just feel really down and depressed anyway -- then consider medication but also consider nutrition perhaps. (Because that's under your control, even if you don't see someone right away.) Fish oil and turmeric extract would be two examples you could experiment with. I hope things improve for you soon. I believe there are some solutions for you, whatever they may be! There are lots of things to try.

[Wonderfalls]

I started with a psychiatrist because he was recommended to me. At the time my insurance was pretty comprehensive. It turned out he also did therapy and I stayed with him. This time I started with my insurance because it's a lot stingier. I found that if I depended on Psychology Today as a source I lost a whole lot of candidates. It costs money to advertise with them and not all therapists can afford or want to go with them. I did get references from my retiring therapist and found what I could from google.

The surprising thing for me was that I did find psychiatrists willing to do at least some therapy. Even the psychiatrist I chose spends a whole half and hour with me every two months, which is more than I expected.[Because I've been stable on the same drug combination for years now.] After trying a few therapists, I'm with the therapist he recommended.

Personally I would start again with a psychiatrist who could well have a better overview of the field.

[marcoleap]

There are a number of psychiatrists, especially in major cities, that both prescribe and do talk therapy. My own feeling is that if you're on meds, you should be seeing a psychiatrist--not a GP--and you should be in therapy, at least for a decent amount of time. A number of studies suggest that meds with talk therapy are superior to meds alone over the long term. But if you are in a crisis and your symptoms are acute, don't wait: see someone right away and start getting yourself stabilized.

[iamverysad]

Originally Posted by mostlylurking

iamverysad, genes also can make you more likely to be deficient in certain nutrients. If you really feel you are depressed with no known reason -- you feel you had a happy childhood, you had a loving parent(s), you like yourself okay, but somehow you just feel really down and depressed anyway -- then consider medication but also consider nutrition perhaps. (Because that's under your control, even if you don't see someone right away.) Fish oil and turmeric extract would be two examples you could experiment with. I hope things improve for you soon. I believe there are some solutions for you, whatever they may be! There are lots of things to try.

Exactly. I have a good job, nice family, happy childhood ( I was always depressed but I had everything I needed). I just feel terrible, especially with others. I also have obsessions (I check if the door is locked approx 10-20 times). Thats medication I think.