Mental health disorders are tough to treat and despite the success of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) on patients, sometimes the need for drugs is necessary. For the longest time medical practitioners, such as physicians and psychiatrists, have been the providers of medications. However, psychologists have started to fight for the right to have prescription privileges for their patients. There have even been legislations passed in the US, to adhere to these rights. Unsurprisingly, this request for prescribing privileges has led to an intense controversy between medical professionals and psychologists. The main arguments being debated are concerning the access patients will get to health care, and the type of education and understanding on both sides is not sufficient enough to prescribe medication.
Proponents of psychologist prescribing privileges are mainly psychologists of the American Psychological Association, who started the Prescriptive authority for psychologist’s movement (RxP) (Murray, 2003). While those in the opposition, are
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I agree with the opposition that psychologists do not receive enough training in the medical field, like a doctor or psychiatrist would. Dr. Jeremy Lazarus, president of the American Medical Association said in an article, “psychologists have little, if any, experience diagnosing illnesses such as epilepsy and cancer that can produce psychiatric symptoms” (Rettner, 2012). A lot of the time there are symptoms of real medical issues that can look like mental health disorders, and I do not feel that psychologists have that type of knowledge, although extremely well educated in their own field. If they plan to really prescribe they should become psychiatrists, or there should be a new curriculum for psychologists that include training and education in pharmacology within their program so they do not have to learn it after the