by Jane Allyson

Created on: May 21, 2007   Last Updated: May 22, 2007

Sometimes it is necessary to prescribe drugs for severe mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar. The only type of psychologist that is allowed to prescribe drugs is an MD and he will have the experience and knowledge to make a valued judgment as to whether the patient will need prescribed medication.

In all other cases I feel that prescribing drugs for patients undergoing treatment, for example: Cognitive behavioral therapy, Psychoanalytic therapy, Hypno-psychotherapy, Hypno-psychotherapy to name a few, would be counter productive and interfere with the method of treatment.

The job of the psychologist is to collaborate with the patient in completely changing established thinking patterns. The more open minded the person is, the more successful the outcome. The therapy operates under the thinking that thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and perceptual biases, influence what emotions will be experienced and to how powerful these emotions can be.

If the patient is given medication it will interfere with the thought processes and feasibly slow down the development of the treatment.

The whole idea of this kind of treatment is to get the patients themselves to examine ideas and beliefs that have perpetuated established patterns of thought throughout their lives. Sometimes a very small factor may be involved in causing the original discrepancy. If the patient is on medication it could possibly slow down the thought processes and this incongruity may be overlooked.

Any patient that has put themselves forward for any psychological treatment has not done it lightly. They have had probably stress, trauma depression and generally a lot of unhappiness in their lives. This treatment needs to be approached with as clear a mind as possible and prescribing medication gives the patient even more of a handicap than they already have.

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