What's the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist?

What's the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist?

Since I get asked this question, from time to time and about my own academic background, I have decided to write some answers here.

I am a research psychologist, with an MSc and PhD, from Cranfield University, after doing a first degree in psychology at The University of Liverpool.

A psychiatrist is a qualified doctor of medicine, who then specialises in the treatment of mental illness.

Most people don't realise that a person with a first degree in psychology (a BA, BSc etc) is not a psychologist; they are a person who has a degree in psychology.

Psychology is most often described as the study of behaviour.

Psychologists are those who have a postgraduate degree (MA, Msc, PhD) in a particular speciality. These include: clinical psychologists, who most often work as part of a team, with psychiatrists, social workers and others, administering diagnostic tests and suggesting psychological treatments, which may include such things as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy; educational psychologists, who work in the mainstream eductaional system, with teachers, or privately, assessing needs and advising; industrial and occupational psychologists, who study, for example, optimum work loads and times and advise on the best practices to adopt. Then there are research psychologists, of the type I am, who are usually academics, perhaps supervising postgraduate students. These are employed on contracts to investigate some particular area. When you are a research psychologist you have the tools to do any kind of research but, rather like an actor who could take any role, you do tend to get typecast.

My work was mainly in the field of road research, in general and driving behaviour in particular. My MSc was inspired by the concept of "Highway Hypnosis", that is, having driven for some considerable time or mileage, especially on motorways, without remembering doing so. It is called, "The effect of task induced variables on performance and physiological measures in a simulated steering situation".

I, also, helped fellow postgraduate students with their studies into subjects as diverse as accident proneness and lorry drivers' performance on certain tasks. We did a massive drink/drive study, getting people drunk and taking them out in a real car but on an airfield test, with yours truly on the dual controls. It was sponsored by the Canadian government, got lots of publicity and we were on the lunch time programme Pebble Mill at One, broadcast from Birmingham at that time.

I was also a research assistant in a study on how children cross the road, for a one-year project, at Nottingham University

My PhD, involving subjects driving 6,000 miles in 6 weeks, on real roads is called, "Multivariate analysis of the relationship between drivometer variables and drivers' accident, sex and exposure status". It was published as a paper in "Human Factors 25(3) 1983.

I would probably have continued being a research psychologist, though not necessarily in the same field, if not for M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), with which I was diagnosed in 1988.

Dr John H Greensmith

ME Free For All. org