what does psychology have to do with mental illness? wouldn't that come under the domain of psychiatry?

Answer 1

Mental illness is under the scope of both psychology and psychiatry.
Quite simply, psychology is the study of behavior and underlying mental processes. Part of what makes a mental illness an illness is the presence of maladaptive behavior. There's a lot of study on etiology, maintaining factors, and treatment.
Psychiatry is the medical treatment of mental illness. The psychiatrists I have worked with were mostly concerned with treatment.
Not everyone with mental illness requires psychotropic medications, so not everyone with mental illness falls under the scope of psychiatry.

Answer 2

Not quite, the actual difference between Psychiatry and Psychology is that a psychiatrist is able to prescribe drugs and a psychologist is desgined to listen and help in a soloution that is both beneficial for the client without a drug cocktail attachment. Psychiatry relies heavily on medication to solve mental illeness and psychology uses the initial triggers and backtracks to discover the inital start of the issue and how it can be resolved. Should a patient require medication often a psychologist will refer the patient to a psychiatrist and vice versa for non-prescription assistance.

Answer 3

I have Bipolar disease and respond to both. Psychology is talk therapy. This helps me to deal with my disease, learn coping mechanisms and whatch my cycles. The psychiatrist on the other hand prescribes my medication.