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Psychiatrist- A psychiatrist is a physician specialist
who focuses on issues of mental health.

Dr. Westerback is a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness and substance abuse disorders. Psychiatrists become medical doctors first, and then serve four years of clinical residency training in the field of psychiatry. Many psychiatrists undergo additional training so that they can further specialize in such areas as child and adolescent psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, psychopharmacology, and/or psychoanalysis.

This extensive training enables the psychiatrist to understand the complex relationship between mental illness and medical illness. The psychiatrist is the mental health professional and physician best qualified to distinguish between physical and psychological causes of both mental and physical distress.

Like all medical doctors, psychiatrists can prescribe medication, which therapists and psychologists, even those with a doctorate in psychology, cannot do.