Yeah, that's why I want to be a psycho-psychiatrist. (I made that up as a combo of psychologist and psychiatrist.) So I can do both medication and therapy. But I'm not sure if that actually exists.
Although I'm kind of against medication in some situations because of all the side effects that can happen (not all situations really require medication, though plenty do require it), so I'd rather be a psychologist than a psychiatrist if I had to choose one over the other. Talking things over really can have huge effects on people.
Ahh, I see. I think there are some places where as a Clinical Psychologist (PsyD degree, I think...) you can prescribe medication or you can send them to somebody who can, so you still have that option as a psychologist. I agree, there are times when it's truly a chemical imbalance in the brain and medication can absolutely help, just like with any other disease, but other cases where the issue has to do with other factors and in that case medication can actually do harm, because it can create a dependency (by changing neurotransmittor levels where they didn't need to be changed). In psychology there's some controversy on when it is okay to give medication and others when it's not. One of the examples in one of my classes was for ADD/ADHD medication. They say that it's being prescribed more but not necessarily because more people have the disorders, but possibly due to other factors such as increased class sizes, and kids with high energy and the teachers, being overwhelmed, suggest to the parents to have them checked for the disorder so the kids will just "be quiet and sit still." There are lots of types of psychology and counseling definitely seems to be an interesting one.