I’ve had a psychiatrist as my psychotherapist before, but it’s fairly unusual. Most psychiatrists focus on medication management and things that actually require an MD. A psychotherapist may be a psychologist, a social worker, a counselor/therapist, or hold some other credential that will vary by state and the practitioner’s education and scope of practice. Psychologists also do psychological testing and evaluation in addition to therapy; that’s probably not something you need to worry about and you can always get referred if your friend needs a clinical test to diagnose a specific condition. I mention it mostly because it’s the primary difference between a psychologist and someone with a different title that allows them to practice psychotherapy but not to administer psych tests.
I would start by looking at the insurance website, assuming your friend has some form of insurance. If not, or if her insurance doesn’t cover mental health adequately, there should be a county mental health service agency that can provide low-cost sliding-scale services and/or refer to someone who does. Unfortunately, availability is often the limiting factor, especially if your friend is someone who works conventional hours and can’t get off during the day for a weekly appointment.
I’ve been through this recently. A friend referred me to someone she knew who wasn’t taking new clients. That person suggested using the insurance website and offered to tell me anything she knew about whoever turned out to be available. I called everyone on the list in the rather small town I’m in and got several calls back. One was a woman who suggested her husband to me, whom I hadn’t called because he was listed in the next small town over. Her husband is a psychologist, which made sense for me, since evaluation for adult ADHD is one of the primary things I was looking for. The counselor my friend referred me to didn’t know anything about him, but we connected well on the phone and he seemed very committed to figuring out what is causing my symptoms, and he was willing to see me on the weekend or in the evening, which no one else (besides his wife) was. (Oddly enough, the woman who referred me to her husband is herself a psychologist, but she doesn’t do psych testing in her private practice, and her husband does.)