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Comment by mhkool | Hacker News Reader

Ask yourself what TYPE of therapist you want: - the type that give you a prescription drug to suppress the symptoms that you complain about, or - the type that knows how to search for the root cause of the health issues and informs you how to get rid of them.

My advice is to go to http://www.brokenbrain.com before you make a decision.

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In the US, "therapist" generally means a licensed counselor (master's level education), marriage and family therapist (also master's level), or psychologist (doctorate). None of those practitioners has the authority to prescribe in most US states. (A few states allow psychologists limited prescribing rights.) There is no type of therapist that will give you a prescription drug to suppress symptoms, especially without also providing talk therapy, which is the job they trained to do.

A psychiatrist prescribes and should usually be used in concert with a therapist. That link sounds a lot like alternative medicine too.

That's a good point. If you are only looking for drugs, you're probably doing it wrong.

While I want to actually visit the doctor, I've found it incredibly difficult to find one, apparently all calls get routed to the billing department

Fair point - it can be really hard to get in with a psych. I'd talk to your PCP and see if they can get you a referral at least.

She actually made a referral, then I found out that department wasn't accepting new patients... It's been a frustrating process.

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