Differences between psychology and psychiatry

Question 1

What is Psychology?

Answer 1

The formal scientific study of mind and behaviour

Question 2

What are the 5 Paradigms of Psychology

Answer 2

• cognitivism: input from the environment and output from previous experiences (pertains to thought)
• Behaviourism: we can’t see thoughts and therefore we have to observe and measure behaviour. This is how we’ve learnt about animals and studying humans has shown there is a high degree of patterns of behaviour throughout a person’s life, such as love, how would we measure love?
• qualitaitive: revolves around understanding a particular experience, information which can only really come from asking the individual
• medical: features which can be explained by biological reasoning
• social: humans need to simplify the world, less work. Attractiveness is related to fertility and this could explain why body size and age are important for men in finding a woman, but for women, they prefer status and money as previously, women were reliant on men

Question 3

Education to become a psychologist

Answer 3

BSc in Psychology (3 years), MSc Statistics and Research Methods (1 year), PhD in specialist topic (3-4 years). Average salary: £40,000-£60,000

Question 4

Education to become a psychiatrist

Answer 4

MBBS (5 years), F1/2 years, specialisation (3-6 years). Average salary £100,000

Question 5

what are the 9 sub-diciplines of psychology

Answer 5

• Cognitive
  o Social
  o Developmental
  o Statistical
  o Clinical
  o Counselling
  o Biological
  o Educational
  o Occupational

Question 6

what used to be a mental disorder and why?

Answer 6

• Homosexuality was a disorder- which was decided upon the basis of statistics where 15% identified as homosexual; due to 85% being hetero, they were classed as normal.

Question 7

What is psychiatry

Answer 7

Branch of medicine concerned with classification, treatment and management of psychiatric or mental disorder and disease (notion of dis-ease)

Question 8

what are the 11 sub-diciplines of psychiatry

Answer 8

o Addiction
o Biological
o Paediatric
o Community
* cross-cultural
* Emergency
o Forensic
o Geriatric
o Military
o Neuropsychiatry
o Social

Question 9

what are the 5 models

Answer 9

• Medical model
• Cognitive model
• Behavioural model
• Qualitative phenomenological
• Scientific

Question 10

Key differences between Psychology and Psychiatry

Answer 10

• Psychiatrists are medical practitioners, psychologists are not
• Psychiatrists can prescribe drugs, psychologists cannot
• Psychiatrists hold an MD, most psychologists hold PhD
• Psychologists study the well mind, psychiatry studies the sick
• Psychiatry treats mental illness, psychologists study behaviour and mind
• Psychiatry favours a biological explanation, psychology gives equal weighting to biological and environmental causes
• psychiatry focuses on abnormal; psychology focuses on normal and abnormal
• Psychiatry only study humans; psychology study on humans and animals