[tripzilch]

> I imagine them to be people with soft science degrees who believe in a wishy-washy mixture of psychobabble and pseudo-science. Surely an intelligent person can see what their questions are getting at and influence the therapist's inferences accordingly, in the same way as you can when taking those silly multiple choice psychological assessments?

A psychiatrist (in NL) first goes through regular medical school (5 years) and then another 4 years of study + on the job study for psychiatrist. (maybe there's one year overlap because I seem to remember it's 8 years total)

While maybe an intelligent person can figure out a lot of things for themselves--even if we ignore the fact that it's harder to figure out without a bit of distance--surely somebody (also intelligent) who's studied for ~8 years in this very field, will be better at spotting and making such assessment than a very intelligent person that trained their intellect in some other field.

If I had a big and important carpenting job, I'd hire a skilled and trained carpenter as well, even if I could probably do and/or figure out most of it myself. Over some level of complexity, I wouldn't even try, I'd hire a carpenter. Add to that, "figuring it out for yourself" becomes much harder if the subject is "yourself" instead of "my house/furniture".

From what I understand, psychiatrists in the US are a bit more like psychologists here. But with 4-5 years of study and who knows how many years of experience, they're still pretty good at it.

One thing though, a very important red flag (IMO), if after a while with a therapist you really get the idea "I could do this better, this person doesn't really get me", then get a new one. Therapists come in many shapes and sizes, and often it's important that you get one that can at least match your intellect to some extent, or it may become hard to trust them (if you can't help but second-guessing them). There will be therapists that can deal with this, talk about particular skeptic feelings and explain it in a way that is acceptable to you. But if they keep setting off all those alarm bells, you're not seeing one of those.

[Crake]

Don't most people see psychologists, though? Psychiatrists cost much more, so most people see the less rigorously schooled psychologists instead due to insurance policies. That's been my impression of it, anyway. You really don't have to be all that smart to be a psychologist, unfortunately; psych being one of those squishy soft "sciences" that doesn't really have much in the way of academic rigor. Psychiatrists here go undergrad (4 years), med school (4 years), and then go on to their residencies and etc. Psychologists have to do psych undergrad and then complete a doctorate I believe to practice on you, but again: chances are pretty decent that someone in a technical field will probably be more intelligent. (An argument could probably be made that psych people might have higher EQ, I suppose.)

I'm sure they work for some people, but there are so many bad and underqualified ones who basically just sit there and listen to you without offering much in the way of insights (but sometimes offering up insults, in my experience). I think a bad therapist can be really damaging, which is unfortunate. People in these sorts of situations don't really need any more things going against them.

edit: I'm in the US, so that's where I'm coming from. When I reread this I realized you're referencing a system outside of the US.

[tripzilch]

In NL, psychiatrists are able to prescribe drugs, because they did medical school before their psychiatrist education. Often a therapy centre employs psychologists that do most of the sessions, and one or a couple of psychiatrists for the prescriptions (usually after seeing the patient at least once--that's probably mandatory, would make sense). Of course a patient's GP could also make the prescription, at request of a psychologist.