You’re probably looking for a Clinical Psychologist Near Me. The information below will guide you into understanding what a Clinical Psychologist does, and help you select one that can help you.
What Does a Clinical Psychologist Do?
A Clinical Psychologist is a healthcare practitioner that works with mental health related issues for patients. Typically, a Clinical Psychologist will work with more severe mental health issues, such as schizophrenia, but this is not always the case.
Based on their propensity to work with more severe cases of mental illness, a Clinical Psychologist is placed in hospitals or similar setups.
In a recent Moulding Health Episode that we did with Veren Gyapersad, a Clinical Psychologist in South Africa, he mentioned that It’s exactly that Clinical Psychologists solve problems. Problem solving can either be really frustrating because you just want to get to a solution. Or it can be quite exciting because you start uncovering and finding bigger things. According to Veren, this was the exciting part for him, or why he enjoyed the most about learning about clinical psychology. There are many general preconceived ideas, but it’s often the furthest thing from what Clinical Psychologists actually do.
The actual therapy with a Clinical Psychologist is individual based, and a therapist can use different modalities of therapy.
Clinical Psychologist Degree?
The entire academic process to become a Clinical Psychologist in South Africa, would be a Bachelors degree with a Psychology major, which would be three years, a one year Honours degree, a two year Masters degree, an internship year, a community service year and a board of exams.
According to Veren Gyapersad, most people are disillusioned about how to become a Clinical Psychologist. For instance, he didn’t realise that he needed a Honours degree. There is much misinformation around the occupation. Moreover, getting into a Masters degree is a big hurdle. Getting into the Honours and Masters programmes are also dependant on the outcome of an interview with other psychologists. It’s quite a gruelling or traumatic experience. It is not a pure academic evaluation, since the process evaluates you as a person as well. It is also quite common for practitioners not to get accepted upon their first attempt.
Clinical Psychologist vs Psychiatrist
A simple answer would be that a Psychiatrist can prescribe medication since they are a medical doctor with a specialisation in clinical psychology.
A Clinical Psychologist cannot prescribe medication and uses therapy to help patients with their illnesses. For this type of healthcare practitioner (as with most), their skills, experience and time are their tool of trade.
Typically, a Clinical Psychologist and a Psychiatrist will be part of a multi-disciplinary team for a patient. This applies especially if the patient is struggling with a severe mental illness.
Requirements for Clinical Psychologist?
Other than the academic qualifications, a Clinical Psychologist would need to be registered with the local healthcare practitioner board in the country. In South Africa, this registration would be with the HPCSA. Furthermore, if the Clinical Psychologist was in private practice, they would also need a practice number.
We covered many of the academic requirements in the section above. It is worth noting that many Clinical Psychologist also offer in person and online based therapy sessions. This is incredible since, as a patient, you have access to many amazing Clinical Psychologists through out the country and possibly the world. You do need to check on the liability aspects of working practitioners that are outside of your country.
This was the podcast episode of Veren Gyapersad talking about his personal experience of becoming a Clinical Psychologist and going into private practice.
What Do Clinical Psychologist Near Me Say About Working with Us?
The following was a comment from Veren Gyapersad, the Clinical Psychologist that we mentioned above.
“Thank you to Oliver and the Moulding Health team for creating a platform for mental health matters to be highlighted! A professional and warm team, it was such a pleasure working with you!”
The following was also a short video from Veren about working with our Kitrin Team.
You can also view other KITRIN Google Reviews here.
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