I'm seconding what LTS said: In your situation, a psychologist is the right way to go. One of my main gripes with psychiatry is that there is a focus on medication being the "miracle cure" for any problem out there. On the other hand, in some cases, just psychological counseling without medication management does not work either.
In an insomnia-related situation, you have already gone to a doctor and received sleeping pills. I will echo what I said in that PM last week by saying again: be very careful when taking the pills and be sure to inform your doctor if there are any changes. Your GP should be the person you talk to about the physical side of your insomnia; the psychologist/counselor, if you choose to see one, should only deal with the mental side of the problem.
If you do decide to see a psychologist, I want to tell you up front that you should probably not let the initial session be a deciding factor in whether or not you want to continue psychological treatment. A lot of people will go to one therapist for one session and say, "Well that did me no good" and leave and never go back. You're more than likely not going to find the "right" therapist on the first try, either due to your own expectations of treatment (which any good therapist will lay out from the get-go and make you an active part of where you want treatment to go) or their methods (Traditional Psychoanalysis would not be the type of therapy to seek out) or just how you feel with the person. The first session will probably be a "get to know you" type of thing but you should, above all else, let the psychologist know what you want to accomplish at the very beginning.
As Lando said, 90% of psychiatrists will just throw some meds at you (often times switching them around on a regular basis until they find "what works") and charge you a bunch of money. This is not to say that they are not good doctors and fine clinicians, but a psychiatrist's job isn't to sit and listen to your problems for an hour; that's a psychologist's job. As you already see a doctor for the medication management aspect of the insomnia, seeing a psychiatrist would simply be a waste of your time and money.
And one other thing about counseling that I feel a lot of people take the wrong way is this: Psychologists do not solve your problems for you. Only you can solve your problems, and psychologists and counselors are there to help you do so. I'm not of the school of thought that says the client should control where everything is going and the counselor should be a passive observer (I prefer an approach that is cognitive behavioral in many respects, where the counselor is direct and the client has to work to better their situation instead of just letting them sit there). It is going to be hard work and you might come face to face with some truths you hadn't considered, but for the majority of people who stick with it and give it a chance (Woody Allen excepted; I think he just likes the attention), psychological counseling/therapy is beneficial and can help you come to grips with problems that have bothered/are bothering you.
Oh, and Tom Cruise is a ******* lunatic scumbag who is basing all his arguments on erroneous information supplied to him by his now dead "master" who was disbarred from the AMA and APA for falsifying and exaggerating research in published articles in peer reviewed journals. So, whenever you see Cruise or Travolta or Kirstie Alley on television talking about how psychiatry and psychology are evil, just know that they're doing it because their lord and savior held a grudge for being revealed as a fraud.
But regardless, Chewie, if you have any questions about any of this, or if you just want some honest and unbiased feedback, feel free to PM me.
