The Mind of a Sociopath

Depends so much on the quality of training where one is, and what one is considered to be qualified FOR.

It's not like you are comparing apples with apples.

Psychiatrists are generally better trained when it comes to organic issues....they often THINK themselves better trained when it comes to internal dynamics...but (at least here) they are often using fairly outmoded theory as if it were gospel truth.

Psychologists are generally better trained when it comes to evidence based theories of mind and behaviour.

Social workers are generally better trained when it comes to systemic and sociological issues.

This is why multi-disciplinary teams are so useful.

That being said, there is huge individual variance, and it often comes down, a few years after graduation, to the kinds of further education one has done, and one's experience and reflective capacity.

If my friends ask for referrals, I am not guided by discipline, but what I know of an individual's quality of work, their suitedness to the individual in question etc.

I have several psychiatrist friends who have sought therapy from social workers, or, in one case, for a very specific CBT program, a mental health nurse, and in one case a psychologist.

I have a friend from where I last worked who is a social worker, but she is supervising 6 clinical psychologists, because they fought to have her supervise them because of the extent of her skills. (They also have to spend time with a psychologistsupervisor, but their therapy supervision is from her because she is outstandingly better than the psychologist seniors...though they are fine practitioners.)

Personally, I greatly miss having at least one psychiatrist on team where I am now. The more and different the perspectives, in my view, the better the service, and the more one learns.

By the way, if one were to poll most workers in the field, (in Oz) leaving out psychiatrists, psychiatrists would likely be seen as the least likely to provide good therapy.

I am often a lone voice in such discussions as maintaining that there ARE very good psychiatrists around who do great work. This is because I have met and worked with them.

There are also some remarkably fine psychiatrists researching and working in the fields I specialise in...complex trauma and attachment, and many of the books I gain most from are by psychiatrists.

I was thinking in terms of prescribing--i'd much rather think of psychiatrist prescribing than a psychologist. I don't think that psychologists intensively study chemistry, and someone with an MD not only studies chemistry, but at least the rudiments of pharmacology. At least ostensibly, a psychiatrist should be qualified to examine all of the drug treatments an individual was involved in (for example for a morbid condition, pain management, etc., apart from drugs indicated for mental illness), and make an informed decision about what should be prescribed, in what dosages, and in fact, whether or not other drugs in whatever regime the individual was involved in might not either mask some symptoms or be responsible for symptoms.

I don't think there is any reason to suppose that a psychologist would be qualified to do that. Of course, there's no guarantee that the psychiatrist had kept abreast of the literature, either, or had paid enough attention in medical training to be competent in those matters.

A psychology degree alone does not qualify them to prescribe medicine.

New Mexico Governor Signs Landmark Law on Prescription Privileges for Psychologists

Well, again it seems moot as to whether they can.

They certainly cannot here...and I haven't seen any real evidence that they can in the US.

Where are you saying that they can?

In some states? Everywhere?


Re psychiatrists...sure..they SHOULD be able to do all the stuff re drugs that you mention.

Probably some can.

I have to say, though, that the psychiatric ward I worked on fortunately had a pharmacist who came to meetings. He would frequently blanch at a suggested drug, or drug combination, that someone was being, or about to be, prescribed, and point out the dangers. Sometimes very severe ones.

There are regular warnings and MIMS updates, but it is hard for doctors to keep really up to date with pharmacology.

I see what you're on about . . . i was forgetting that the information i had found showed that psychologists do not prescribe. I was wandering in a hypothetical world once again. As i said in my response to JPB, the instances to which i referred probably were ones in which the mental health counsellor was a nurse practitioner (and writing that recalled to me that the counsellor i saw was an RN--probably a nurse practitioner), or someone associated with an MD who actually provided the Rx.

I do beg your pardon, Miss Wabbit. I have been wool-gathering here for a while, and trying to keep track of several different subjects.

I'd certainly trust a psychiatrist re drugs for psychopathology way more than I would trust a GP or a paediatrician...but they ARE medically trained.

Just noted that there seems to be some provision for psychologists to do special post grad training, in some states at least, so that they can prescribe.

Looks to me a reasonable training regimen.

A lot of that can be laid at the door of corporate pharma. In the U.S., when a particular drug becomes available to be produced as a generic, the pharmas will tweak the formula slightly with an inert chemical addition which makes it technically a different formulation, and then they go through the entire marketing process again, to try to get their "new" drug onto the prescription pads of the MDs. Lately, here, that has been accompanied by aggressive advertising campaigns on television.

That may be the most elegant way of saying "I pulled it out of my ass" that I've ever read....

Well, in fact, i was speaking to JPB, and not to you, because you are one snide, hateful son-of-a-bitch. As i happens, i have admitted in my posts to JPB that i was wrong; which is not at all the same, however, as saying that i "pulled [anything] out of my ass."

It should come as no surprise to you that i entertain a very low opinion of you based on your behavior here, and not simply because of your behavior toward me, which i am capable of ignoring. So you might well imagine (if you actually possession imagination), that that being the case, i don't care what snotty constructions you put on what i write.

Many psychiatrists have a MA in psychology here as well (at least all those, who head a department or hopsital).
Many are medical specialist in 'psychiatry and psychotherapy'.

Different system here. (Psychologists could only prescribe via the doctor who referred the patient; but such rarely happens, if at all.)

[The psychiatric practice both my mother and my aunt go (resp. whose doctors visit them in the senior's home) to is run by two doctors: one is specialist in "neurology" and "psychiatry", the other in "psychiatry", "psychotherapy" and "acupuncture".
The doctors at the department for neurology at one of our local hospiatls don't have any psychosocial degrees or diploma. But those at our three psychiatric hospitals (due to historic reasons we have the highest amount of psychiatric hospitals in Europe here) certainly have.]

I see...

Asking you to back up an outrageous claim is snide?

Requiring you to stick to facts is hateful?

That says more about you than it does about me, Bubba.

It's interesting that pictured is a ball python, one of the gentlest creatures on this Earth.

How do thay get food ?

Back in the sixties, my dad lost a lot f money to a crooked accountant, who also destroyed the trust account for a retarded child. The accountant had a "good" lawyer, who got him off with a light sentence, and he only served a fraction of that. The lawyer claimed the accountant had a "gambling sicknesss," and had him up for early parole over and over, till those whose lives he'd wrecked got tired of appearing at the hearings.

I had a book about psychopaths. On the front cover was a normal-looking face/head. The back cover showed flames shooting out of the back of the head. Such are psychopaths. They can be thoroughly charming, convincing and thoroughly diabolical and destructive. Hitler was one. Stalin was one. Ahmadinnejad is one.

Psychotics, by and large, are far less harmful than psychopaths because the former are so often dysfunctional. Psychopaths are generally very functional indeed, much to the detriment of society and the world.

Welcome to a2k, survivor...

I suspect society suffers a lot more from psychopaths than from psychotics.

Did the accountant have signature authority over the funds ?

Welcome to the forum, Survivor 17





David

Your assessment is accurate, DrewDad.
That individual has a sick and pernicious mind.
With no provocation, he spews caustic insolence
at everyone on the forum, to hurt their feelings.
I suspect that he is not able to restrain his vituperative emotions.
He is just a fountain of malice; no one is safe from his acrimony.
In this respect, he seems to be mentally disabled; not in all respects,
but he intentionally makes communication with him so unpleasant
that few people are willing to tolerate his abuse.

For this reason, I have had him on Ignore for several months now.
That Ignore button serves a very helpful purpose.
It makes the world a nicer place.





David