Suffering From Anxiety In Tarzana, Do You Need A Psychologist?

A psychologist is a person who dedicates their lives to the study and evaluation of human behavior as well as the mental process. The psychologists who practice are trained in the clinical skills of helping people cope better with all of the issues in life as well as their mental health problems. They use a wide variety of skills as well as some tools that are at their disposal in order to help the patient with whom they work attain some set goals. The Tarzana psychologist can also help you by considering your unique values.

MFT

A psychologist is different from a Marriage and Family Therapist or an MFT. A marriage and family therapist uses the patterns of the behavior of a patient’s family, and uses these to assess how best to treat the patient. In this type of therapy, the person is not the only unit required for his or her treatment regardless of whether he is the only person in the interview. The therapist makes an assessment of all the relationships that surround the life of the person and make a diagnosis based on them.

Why are MFTs better than regular psychologists?

There are a number of reasons why an MFT would be considered to be better than the regular psychologist. The following are some of these reasons:

Broader spectrum

The psychologists are limited to a shorter spectrum of issues as compared to the Marriage and Family Therapists. A psychologist is strictly limited to the patient as an individual and uses their personal traits to evaluate the problem and to help them better deal with it. They are mostly concerned with the mental disorders as opposed to the emotional ones.

However, a Marriage and Family Therapist treats the patient but in a broader spectrum than a psychologist. The MFT looks at all the relationships that surround the life of the patient and makes an assessment. They assess all the issues that are related to the relationships of the person within the contexts of the family set up and make an analysis on how these relationships could be affecting the behavioral spectrum of the patient.

Long term health

A psychologist main role in the life of a patient is to help or equip them with the tools to better manage their mental disorder or other such issues. The results they are more concerned with are in the shorter term and these are accepted by the doctor.

An MFT, on the other hand, is more concerned with the longer term mental and emotional health of the patient. They address the roles as well as the nature of the patient in their most primary relationships which are marriage and family. They take up a more holistic approach to the health of the patient thus broadening the traditional domains of mental health of the patients. This means, although there might be no short term results, on the longer term, the mental health of the patient is dramatically improved and they become better individuals in their relations with family and other loved ones.

Experience

A psychologist generally has less experience and training as compared to a Marriage and Family Therapist. This is because a psychologist spends seven years learning as well as supervised training. After graduating from this, they can move on to even begin a practice or can start addressing patient issues.

An MFT, on the other hand, requires at least two years of clinical training after completing his seven years in school so that he can be allowed to practice. It could take up to 13 years for an MFT to begin actual practice and this is 6 years more than a regular psychologist. Also, an MFT is mostly trained to practice with a little of research whereas a psychologist is taught both how to research as well as to practice. So an MFT is more specialized in the treatment of patients giving more experience in treating patients as compared to a psychologist.

Conclusion

An MFT can treat a wide range of mental and emotional disorders ranging from marital problems to depression and drug abuse. They are not restricted and are mostly trained to help people. So if you are looking for a Tarzana Psychologist, you might want to reevaluate and consider choosing a Marriage and Family Therapist.