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A: A medical psychotherapist is a medical doctor, who has chosen to provide mental health services, which may or may not include prescribing medications, to either their own patients in their practise or upon referral from other physicians, mental health providers, and the general public. Some MD psychotherapists request a formal referral and others will accept a phone call from the person seeking treatment. Issues treated may include anxiety and depression, couples conflict, trauma, sexual problems, and addictions, just to name a few. A variety of different therapeutic modalities (e.g. psychodynamic, CBT, EMDR, NLP, Hypnosis, medications etc.) may be used depending on the training and focus of the therapist.

A Medical Psychotherapist is a doctor who practises psychotherapy whereas a regular Psychotherapist is not medically trained. Most provincial insurance plans (such as OHIP) do not cover psychotherapy performed by a non-MD.  Medical Psychotherapists are in a unique position to offer psychotherapy as they are very knowledgeable about physiological and pharmaceutical factors that can affect mental health.