The Pros And Cons Of Prescription Privileges For Psychologists

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Prescription privileges have been debated at great length in this field. The decision to grant psychologists prescription privileges will forever change the nature of psychology. The major question is we need to ask ourselves is, will psychology be changed for the better? In my opinion, no. Psychology is a field that focuses on cognitive, behavioral, and psychotherapy while the rest of the world is focusing on the medical model. There is no doubt that some people do need medication for their psychological disorders but there are many resources to get medication. I believe a resource with less reliance on the medical model is what society needs and wants.
Tonkin and Jureidini (2006) state that medication is already over prescribed, especially …show more content…

In my opinion the most difficult part of the debate is that nothing is certain until the privileges are actually granted. Psychologists may retain their preference for therapeutic practices, or they may rely on the medical model. People may become wary of another therapist who will impersonally give them a prescription, or they may not even notice the change. We have a resource in psychiatrists, who already have prescription privileges so we can look at what happened to psychiatrists and use it as a guideline. But even then, psychiatry and psychology are separate disciplines and cannot be treated as the same. Until psychologists experience prescription privileges for themselves, all the arguments are just speculation. We as the academic population need to look at all the evidence and decide if we should stick with a good system, or take a leap of faith that will forever change the current system for better or for …show more content…

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Jureidini, J., & Tonkin, A. (2006). Overuse of antidepressant drugs for the treatment of depression. CNS Drugs, 20(8), 623-632. Retrieved from

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