Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Psychoanalyst…

At some point, everyone runs into difficulties, hard situations and circumstances that affect their emotional and psychical state. Some of it you manage to handle on your own — but for some things, you find yourself wanting, or needing, to see a specialist.

So who exactly should you turn to, to make better sense of what’s not working in your life?

A psychologist is a specialist who provides psychological help of various kinds, grounded in the general laws of how the psyche develops. They carry out psychological assessment, work on behavioral correction, and offer psychological support in difficult, stressful situations. Psychologists don’t have a medical degree, so they don’t prescribe medication or make diagnoses.

A psychiatrist is a specialist with a medical degree who works with severe psychical disorders that require medication.

A psychotherapist is also a physician, but one who specializes in psychotherapy. As a rule, they don’t work with severe psychical disorders. You might turn to one if you want to understand what’s happening in your life more deeply, and make sense of a particular symptom or disorder.

A psychoanalyst is a specialist with a background in psychology and a narrow specialization of their own. Through psychoanalysis, a person can come to know themselves better, work through deeper issues, understand why certain things keep happening across their life, and become aware of unconscious conflicts, feelings, and fantasies. The relationship built up over the course of therapy helps the analysand see their memories of the past, what’s happening in their life now, and their own inner experience, in a new light.