Do Patients Know The Difference Between A Psychologist And A Psychiatrist?

Dec. 12, 2011 - PRLog -- Do patients know the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?  New book, Beyond the Walls, The World of the Psychotic Patient, by Dr. Joan Eccleston, discusses many psychotic mental illnesses and cases, and the many changes in treatment programs over the past 20 years.  Psychotic illnesses are those brain disorders which involve delusions or hallucinations or extreme moods which demonstrate the person has lost contract with reality.

Patients and those who love them need to know that a psychologist has a doctorate degree in the subject of psychology, the study of human behavior, and a psychiatrist has a doctorate degree in medicine, and then continues four or more years of study during their residency training in the specialty, psychiatry.

Dr. Eccleston goes on to say, “Psychiatrists and their colleagues in neurology are the medical specialists for brain disorders.  Psychiatrists deal with those disorders which affect one’s mood, thinking and behavior, while the neurologist focuses on movement and sensory and memory disorders.”  She adds, “I have purposefully attempted to write this book for lay people, hoping that more will learn to recognize signs and symptoms of serious mental illnesses should it occur in their friends and relatives, or themselves.  I also hope that someday in the future, psychiatrists will regain control over the system of treatment of our sickest psychiatric patients.”

Dr. Eccleston has made multiple efforts to disguise the identity of her patients.  She has changed factual information about them and their cases.  She has limited the descriptions of the patient’s mental state, discussing only symptoms which she found in two or more patients.

With Beyond the Walls Dr. Eccleston hopes in part to help people overcome the stigma of suffering with mental illness and encourage those who are suffering to seek appropriate treatment.  Professionals working with the mentally ill will find valuable information about the many changes in treatment programs over the past 20 years.  To get your copy go to www.beyondthewallsbook.com.

About Dr. Joan Eccleston:
Joan Eccleston, M.D., has spent much of her forty years of clinical practice working with seriously mentally ill patients in public mental health facilities including state hospitals, community mental health center day-hospital programs and outpatient departments.  Her employment in Department of Corrections facilities includes several state prisons as well as at the Hospital for the Criminally Insane.  She has served as a consultant to group homes for both the mentally ill and for the developmentally disabled, and she has testified in court well over three hundred times.

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