Helping people with poor mental health - psychology or Counselling & Psychotherapy?

RedPhil

Hi all I'm looking for advice on career/course route into the this general area. I'm looking into the part time h.dip in ether psychology or c and p in DBS. I've read pretty much all applicable threads here and they've been helpful... I'd like to ask for some 'tailored' however advice...

so I currently work in IT and love what I do but I'm pretty sure i want to do something more meaningful and contributory. Unfortunately however I've suffered from social anxiety disorder and depression for the best part of the last 15 years. My mother and my grandmother both suffered from schizophrenia. At the moment I'm ill myself but am a bit more hopeful than I was a few months ago, hence me even considering going back to college.

Because of my personal and family background what I want to do basically in a nutshell is & without sounding as if I'm trying to sound all high and mighty is help other people who have experienced some of the things I've had to, namely depression and SAD not sure if I would like to be involved working with schizophrenic patients. but I'm unsure whether or not doing psychology or c&p is the best for this. I don't just want to be able to talk to people in about their problems in therapy but also be able to actually try and advance the cause & cures of mental health, as in help in a practical sense as well perhaps with research what works (perhaps I need to be regular medical Dr. for this though), talks to young people etc. For example I admire greatly the work Dr. Harry Barry has done to raise awareness and also the good information he has dispelled in his books. He is a GP though, so has the medical knowledge to assist with the pharmacology side of things.

Am I right in thinking that a psychologist would have more scope in terms of the different ways he/she could help? Or would psychotherapist route be the way to go? Does clinical psychology involve any counselling aspect or it is concerned with diagnosis only? Does clinical psych get to learn in detail about different drugs, their effects etc. or is that all a psychiatrists job, I know clinical psych can't prescribe. Do clinical psych staff actually get to try and find by research the best way to help with these problems or again is that done by dedicated research people.

I'd love to get involved in a team like these: http://www.stpatrickshosp.ie/anxiety-disorders/team or http://www.stpatrickshosp.ie/team-2 a lot of them are psychotherapists using CBT which I am familiar with and believe is right for many patients. On the other hand
most people involved in the running social anxiety Ireland and it's groups around the country are clinical psychologists so I'm unsure how I want to proceed.

I attended the PCI college psychology taster / overview day in Dublin west last week and found it fascinating I must say, but not sure if the presenter cherry picked the most interesting things from psych to appeal to us as they have a new psychology certificate available now. Currently reading a psych book and again its all extremely interesting to me (some of the Freud stuff was strange though) so if I did psychology I think I would be captivated. On the other hand I hear that people who do c&p courses usually go through a lot of personal growth themselves. Given the fact that I'm ill (but am usually am to engross myself in something if I find it interesting) at the moment could either work for or against me as it might be helpful or could be too much. My main concern is what route is best to deal with and help people with depression and social anxiety disorder? Should I seek clinical psychology or perhaps Counselling Psychology training after base psychology degree or be a therapist who specialises in SAD and depression using integrative & perhaps CBT techniques?

I realise my post is long winded but please offer any input that you can.
Also if you know about DBS specifically for hdip psych or hdip c&p that would be great too. Hours, quality of lessons etc.

cheers.

hotspur

I'm not sure why this hasn't received any answers, especially considering some of the active threads on here, perhaps it's because it was so involved with so many questions.

I will try to pick out some of the questions. As to advancing our knowledge of the causes of and cures for psychological disorders there are very few people who train in counselling & psychotherapy who engage in this. The reality is that it is the psychiatry and psychology professionals who mostly do this, with the psychoanalysts developing it in their own formulations.

Training in counselling and psychotherapy as an independent discipline is not typically based on a researcher - practitioner model, but both clinical psychology and counselling psychology are. Clinical psychology does indeed involve therapy, not just diagnosis.

The question of clinical / counselling psychology versus counselling and psychotherapy is a difficult one. There is little doubt that clinical psychology is the most advantageous career wise, but that is balanced with it being an enormous bottleneck and very difficult to get into.

You could be a trained counsellor / psychotherapist in 2 or 3 years. Being a clinical or counselling psychologist will take much longer. There are many counsellors out there now and it is not an easy thing to make money out of as a career.

Doing a H.Dip in psychology at least gives you a choice. You could do it at night-time in DBS while at the same time do a foundation course in counselling at some point during that period to get a taster for it.

Many people who enter counselling and psychotherapy training have experienced mental health problems in the past. There is an image of the wounded healer. Additionally, research shows that therapists do not differ from the general population in respect of incidence of mental health problems.

No-one here can speak to whether you are well enough to enter a therapy training programme at the moment, but it has been said that the best thing you can do to help others is to get well yourself.

If I were pushed to give advice on which route to take without knowing age, finances, responsibility, ability etc. I would say the psychology route. Having a H.Dip in psychology will still be useful to you personally no matter what you decide afterwards.

bureau2009

Does the research tell us anything about the most effective forms of helping, ie is therapy provided by clinical/counselling psychologists "better" than that provided by counsellors/psychotherapists?

Also, is the evidence base of psychology stronger than that of counselling/psychotherapy?

RedPhil

Boards is blocked in work so only getting to this now.

Thanks hotspur for your detailed response. Yeah I'm pretty sure if I do either it will be the psych h dip in DBS. I was at an open day there recently and lady told me that there's going to be perhaps 40 in this class this year. I'm pretty sure my social anxiety would be off the wall, sweats galore when I walk into class. I'm really in two minds about this now. My depression and anxiety makes me so tired it would be tough to do this course. including all the extra non lecture work, but there's every chance that this time next year (and the next year...) I'll be exactly the same so probably should give it a go. If I was well I would probably just want to be living my life but I just stay in all the time (apart from the day job) so might as well spend that time learning something.

Harrisgarcia

Shill. Reviving zombie thread. JC