>>3190>Do you really need a psychologist to talk to? Yes. Many do. If you honestly feel like you manage your mental illness well enough as it is, good on you. But a lifetime of mental illness absolutely influences the way you live, behave and think, in an often dysfunctional way. Your mind starts to operate in the context of your illness. And depending on the person, the severity of their illness, and how long they've been like that, it can be monumentally difficult to break those habits. And that's not something medication will do for you, and not everyone is capable of figuring out on their own. And even if you are, a good psychologist can help you get there faster.
But the thing about the brain is that it's "plastic". While the brain ultimately is your mind, through purposefully monitoring and changing your own thought patterns and behavior, you can in turn influence your brain. It will actually change, physically, just by trying to think and act in different ways.
It's like being in an accident and then taking the painkillers and meds but then skipping the physical therapy because fuck it, you already learned how to use a wheelchair, you don't need to walk.
And it's also not like psychology and psychiatry don't go hand in hand. Psychology is to psychiatry what theoretical physics is to experimentalists. Much of what psychologists do has clinical evidence.