According to NAMI, the following roles are trained to evaluate, recognize, and thus, diagnose a mental illness (and can prescribe medication):
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Psychiatric Or Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (in most states, requires supervision/sign off of a psychiatrist)
- Primary Care Physicians (which can mean an OBGYN, which believe me is fucking ridiculous)
- Family Nurse Practitioners
- Psychiatric Pharmacists
- Pastoral Counselors (wtf?)
Social workers, therapists, clinicians, and counselors can
assist in assessing mental health conditions. What does this means? It means they can
evaluate you and refer you to a licensed physician. And this is exactly what they are supposed to do. Most people who go to therapy just need to talk about their feelings. If you go in there needing a diagnosis, they do one of two things: share your case with a supervising psychiatrist or psychologist at their practice (fairly common these days, even better help has them), or if it's beyond what they are trained to help assess, they refer you to a psychiatrist and you don't carry a folder with their thoughts on what they've observed, it gets sent directly to the doctor.
Chloe is not in therapy, and I believe she's mentioned that specifically, but then sometimes she talks about therapy in a strange disconnected way that feels like a fictional monologue like I've seen friends perform in improv classes.