The role of a psychologist in Calgary is to help you become aware of the connection between your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and behaviors. They are able to provide objective feedback on your circumstances based on experience and understanding of clinical research. This article will go into further detail about psychology and how a psychologist might diagnose a mental illness and further work with their patients.
What Is Psychology
Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. Psychology studies human behavior, mental functioning, emotions, motivations, and actions. The field includes aspects of biology, philosophy, sociology, neurology, and anthropology. Psychology has many subfields including:
- Psychotherapy;
- Clinical psychology;
- Developmental psychology;
- Cognitive psychology;
- Behavioral neuroscience; and
- Social psychology.
What Are Psychologists Trained To Do?
So what does a Calgary psychologist actually do? Put simply they aim to assess and diagnose problems in thinking, feeling, and behavior as well as find out what is causing these problems. Psychologists want to understand their patients’ thoughts, feelings, emotions, habits, and beliefs. Psychologists are trained to help people overcome or manage their problems to allow them to live more fulfilling lives. There are many different types of psychologists, all with different roles.
Can A Psychologist In Calgary Diagnose Mental Illness?
Can a Psychologist Diagnose Mental Illness? Registered psychologists are licensed health care professionals who specialize in psychotherapy and many other mental health services such as the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
Although psychologists are trained to assess, diagnose and treat mental health problems and disorders they cannot prescribe medication. The work that they do is primarily to help their patients see the connection between their thoughts, feelings, sensations, and behavior to better understand how they can take steps to modify negative thoughts, emotions, and behavior for more positive reactions.
A diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder involves psychological screening to be sure that other conditions are not causing the patient’s trouble, followed by a thorough assessment of the patient’s past, present, and family history to identify treatment options. This may be done through a variety of tests, including:
- Physical examinations;
- Lab tests; and
- Psychological questionnaires.
How Psychologists Work With Patients
These days, a lot of people are seeking help from a psychologist in Calgary for a wide range of reasons. Some may need to evaluate their mental or emotional health before getting into a new relationship or looking for a new job, others may have just gone through a stressful life event that has caused unexpected behavior changes in them and they want to understand it better.
In addition, people suffering from physical illnesses such as dementia, circulatory conditions, heart disease, cancer, or diabetes may also want to talk to a clinical psychologist about how psychological factors affect the course of their medical treatment and prognosis.
Psychological treatment aims to control or relieve mental illness. Various treatments are available, using therapies developed since the 19th century. Psychotherapeutic treatments include:
- Psychotherapy;
- Behavior therapy; and
- Hypnotherapy.
Treatments by health professionals other than psychologists include medical treatment (to control symptoms) and psychiatric medication (for symptom reduction). Some alternative medicine approaches use standard treatments along with other methods such as acupuncture, yoga, tai chi, meditation, or herbal medicine.
