How to become a psychologist / psychiatrist??

I'm in year 12 and don't really understand what all the different university degrees and courses mean (what is the difference between a masters and Phd and PsyD??)

I know I want to work in the area of mental health when I'm older but not quite sure exactly which job is right for me

I've read that to become a psychiatrist you need a medicine degree, then 2 years of foundation training and then 6 years of speciality training
What I don't understand is at what point do you actually start working and earning money? And also what even is foundation training and speciality training?

For a psychologist it says you need a three year degree in psychology and then a 3 year Phd/PsyD in clinical / counselling psychology? Again, at what point would you be working and earning a salary??
It's so confusing!!!

Thanks

Upon completing your 5 year medical degree you will begin work as a doctor in a hospital. The first year is known as foundation year 1 and the second year known as foundation year 2. During these 2 years you do six 4 month placements. Both FY1 and FY2 posts are paid full time jobs. In terms of understanding degrees;

Bachelors - The most basic university degree.
Masters - A postgraduate advanced degree, done after a bachelors but before a doctorate. Typically takes 1 year.
PhD - A complete research doctorate taking roughly 3-4 years.
DClincPsych/PsychD etc etc - Professional training doctorates taking 3-4 years. They involve research, taught components and work placement.

PhDs and psychology doctorates are a mixed bag. Some PhDs are funded i.e. you get paid roughly £16,000 a year whilst you study, your fees are also paid for you. Others you self fund i.e. you pay £9,000 in fees and have to financially support yourself whilst you study. The same is true of psychology doctorates. The DClinPsych doctorate is a pay as you learn scheme whilst others require you to self fund.

If i ve understood correctly and its a basic understanding for this sort of thing so I'm not 100%. I have is that for the psychiatrist route you would earn a salary from the foundation training (at which point its a junior doctors level salary and then it increases in the core and speciality training i think). Then for the psychologist route you would need to find a university to study the clinical psychology doctorate (you would then have a band 6 salary once starting your doctorate, about 26k so i've read).
What is it exactly you want to do in mental health?
Becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist aren't your only options, you could look into becoming a PWP, a psychotherapist or a mental health nurse (which all require degrees but dont need postgraduate training in most cases as far as i know).

Upon completing your 5 year medical degree you will begin work as a doctor in a hospital. The first year is known as foundation year 1 and the second year known as foundation year 2. During these 2 years you do six 4 month placements. Both FY1 and FY2 posts are paid full time jobs. In terms of understanding degrees;

Bachelors - The most basic university degree.
Masters - A postgraduate advanced degree, done after a bachelors but before a doctorate. Typically takes 1 year.
PhD - A complete research doctorate taking roughly 3-4 years.
DClincPsych/PsychD etc etc - Professional training doctorates taking 3-4 years. They involve research, taught components and work placement.

PhDs and psychology doctorates are a mixed bag. Some PhDs are funded i.e. you get paid roughly £16,000 a year whilst you study, your fees are also paid for you. Others you self fund i.e. you pay £9,000 in fees and have to financially support yourself whilst you study. The same is true of psychology doctorates. The DClinPsych doctorate is a pay as you learn scheme whilst others require you to self fund.

Do you know what sort of placements I would be doing in the foundation years? Would I be specializing psychiatry at this point or still doing other medical stuff?

You get to rank jobs but there is no guarantee you'll get your first pick. There will be different jobs at different hospitals and you rank which you'd like most and least like to do. The jobs typically come as a trio for F1 and a trio for F2 e.g.

- Respiratory medicine, ENT surgery, psychiatry
- Gastroenterology, colorectal surgery, GP

You have to do blocks in medicine and surgery in order to meet the basic requirements of the foundation program. But you may also do GP or psychiatry as a community placement.

It is quite possible you'll do psychiatry for 4 months as either an F1 or an F2, but you may also not get a rotation in psychiatry before applying for psychiatry speciality training.

You basically need to ask yourself two simple questions: A) Do you want to become a doctor and have what it takes? B) Can you really see yourself working in mental health (a pretty grim area tbh - if you haven't any actual real life experience of it I highly doubt you'd be thinking the same years down the line)?

If doctoring isn't for you, forget psychiatry. If it is, every young doctor changes their mind about their specialty a thousand times so going into medicine already knowing what type of doctor you want to be at the end of it, is short-sighted.

Otherwise, your options are psychotherapy without DClinPsy or a psychologist with it. Note, doing a 3 year psychology degree leaves you with pretty poor job prospects once you graduate. To progress to become a psychologist, you'll need at least one year of clinical experience in a mental health environment and then a further 3 years of DClinPsy. That's minimum 7 years before you start actually earning, longer than it takes to do medicine and be a doctor. Ergo, it needs a lot of dedication and you need to make sure you really want to last the course.

Note, there's a wide spectrum of people working in mental health, from counsellors, to psychologists, to psychiatrists. These roles couldn't be more different: becoming a counsellor is a world away from becoming a psychiatrist for example.