Integrating Psychotherapy And Pharmacotherapy

Integrating Psychotherapy and Psychopharmacology: A Handbook for Clinicians is a practical guide for the growing number of mental-health practitioners searching for information on treatments that combine psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and psychosocial rehabilitation. Research shows that combined approaches are among the most effective ways to treat an increasing number of psychiatric disorders. However, though these combined treatments are becoming the everyday practice of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental-health professionals, identifying the right treatment plan can be notoriously difficult, and clinicians are often left scrambling to answer questions about how to design and customize their treatment strategies. In Integrating Psychotherapy and Psychopharmacology, readers will find these questions fully addressed and the answers explained, and they’ll come away from the book with a toolbox full of strategies for helping their patients improve symptoms, achieve remission, and stay well using a combination of drug and psychological treatments.

Although "using both medications and psychotherapy in all patients may not necessarily be most cost-efficient or most effective," according to Beitman (psychiatry, U. of Missouri-Columbia) and his collaborators, it seems important to determine when monotreatment, combined therapy, or integrated treatment may be the best choice. They overview the issues involved in such therapies, and then focus in on research perspectives and understandings of psychodynamic neurobiology. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Over the past two decades, the use of medication combined with psychotherapy or psychoanalysis has shifted from an infrequent occurrence to common practice. Concurrently, attitudes toward medication have changed from viewing this intervention as disruptive or as a last resort to a welcome aid in the psychotherapeutic or psychoanalytic process. However, this relatively rapid change has created difficulty in the integration of medication use into the psychotherapeutic setting. Psychotherapy and Medication is an exceptionally valuable and timely volume that provides psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and other mental health professionals with information on how to work with medication theoretically, clinically, and technically in the context of a psychotherapeutic or psychoanalytic treatment. Important areas of discussion include evidence that a change in the use of medication has taken place, an examination of the factors that have led to this shift, as well as a review of the issues and questions about combining treatments. Psychotherapy and Medication also serves as a framework in how to best answer the many questions that have arisen as the willingness of analysts to use medication increases. Such significant questions include: How should analysts introduce patients to medication? What are the clinical advantages of combined treatment? What is the impact of medication discussions and prescribing on the analyst’s role and how is this best handled?

Most clinicians endorse the combination of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy as more effective and beneficial than each modality alone, but combining these treatments can be a complicated and highly variable process. Competency in Combining Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy: Integrated and Split Treatment is designed to help psychiatrists at any stage of their career achieve competency in combining and coordinating pharmacotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic treatments for the benefit of their patients. This guide, now in its updated, second edition, addresses both integrated (single clinician) and split/collaborative (multiple clinicians) treatments, discussing for each: The selection of medication and psychotherapy The patient evaluation and opening Sequencing Evaluating, monitoring, and supervising treatment Terminating and transitioning patient care The book also offers a chapter -- new to this second edition -- that focuses on primary care access for mental health services in the context of integrated and split/collaborative care. The rapid transformation of clinical care models in new health systems means that competence in integrated and split/collaborative care is absolutely vital for long-established clinicians as well as for psychiatric professionals in the early stages of their careers. Competency in Combining Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy offers an unrivaled introduction to the complex process of combining medication and psychosocial treatments, clearly defining the competencies of combining two modalities. Psychiatric educators should note that this resource relates to all six main competencies of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education: patient care and procedural skills, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and systems-based practice.

Trial-Based Cognitive Therapy (TBCT) is a new model of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) that organizes standard cognitive and behavioural techniques in a step-by-step fashion, making CBT more easily mastered by the new therapist, more easily understood by the patients, and simpler to be implemented, whilst still maintaining flexibility and CBT’s recognized effectiveness. Dividing thirty key features into two parts: ‘Theory and Practice’, this concise book explores the principles of TBCT, explains the techniques developed throughout TBCT therapy to change dysfunctional cognitions, and provides a clear guide to the distinctive characteristics of TBCT. Trial-Based Cognitive Therapy will be of interest to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, therapists, counsellors and other professionals working in the field of mental health, plus those wanting to learn CBT. Trial-Based Cognitive Therapy is part of the Distinctive Features series, which asks leading practitioners and theorists of the main CBT therapies to highlight the main features of their particular developing approach. The series as a whole will be essential reading for psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists of all orientations.

This essential work provides the ideal text for psychiatry residents who need to develop and demonstrate competency in providing psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy in both integrated and split approaches -- a competency required by the Residency Review Committee in Psychiatry. Clinically and developmentally oriented, Competency in Combining Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy: Integrated and Split Treatment focuses on competencies in adult psychiatry in the outpatient setting. The authors detail guidelines for assessing residents' competency to provide both integrated treatment (delivered by one professional) and split treatment (delivered in collaboration by two or more professionals). They present these guidelines in two main standalone sections, which can and should be read separately. Both sections deal with similar problems and thus contain similar information, such as selection of medication and psychotherapy, evaluation and opening, sequencing and maintenance, and termination of integrated and split treatments. Today, the combination of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy is the most widely used treatment modality for a broad range of psychiatric disorders. Many clinicians believe that it is also far more efficacious and beneficial than either modality used alone. This volume ably addresses some of the more complicated aspects of combining treatments, such as how patient presentation affects pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, the timing and staging of combined treatment, which therapies should be used in combination with pharmacotherapy, and which professionals should be included in split treatment. This eminently practical volume will be welcomed by residents and training directors alike as an integral part of all psychiatric residency training programs, and will also be useful to nurse practitioners, physician assistants, social workers, and psychologists.

Most psychiatrists now agree that combining pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy results in the most effective treatment for the majority of mental illnesses. Because treatment decisions are rarely simple, the clinician must choose from an array of modalities, which presents the challenge of finding the best combination of treatments. Intended for both practitioners and psychiatric residents, this book presents the most current research and clinical implications in the use of medication and psychotherapy. It covers four core areas: the ideology and process of combining medication with psychotherapy, clinical implications of research into specific disorders, other diagnostic considerations, and the clinical relationship between mind and brain. Integrating Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy * is DSM-III-R correlated* is illustrated throughout with case studies* includes more than 40 tables and figures* includes a summarizing introduction and conclusion for each chapter* is thoroughly referenced

"The troubling increase in treatment resistance in psychiatry has many culprits: the rise of biomedical psychiatry and corresponding sidelining of psychodynamic and psychosocial factors; the increased emphasis on treating the symptoms rather than the person; and a greater focus on the electronic medical record rather than the patient, all of which point to a breakdown in the person-centered prescriber-patient relationship. Psychodynamic Psychopharmacology illuminates a new path forward. It examines the psychological and interpersonal mechanisms of pharmacological treatment resistance, integrating research on evidence-based prescribing processes with psychodynamic insights and skills to enhance treatment outcomes for patients who are difficult to treat. The first part of the book explores the evidence base that guides how, rather than simply what, to prescribe. It describes precisely what psychodynamic psychopharmacology is and why its emphasis on combining the often-neglected psychosocial aspects of medication with biomedical considerations provides a more optimized approach to addressing treatment resistance. Part II delves into the psychodynamics that contribute to pharmacological treatment resistance, both when patients' ambivalence about their illness, the medication itself, or their prescriber manifests in nonadherence and when medications support a negative identity or are used as replacements for healthy capacities. Readers will gain basic skills for addressing the psychological and interpersonal dynamics that underpin both scenarios and will be better positioned to ameliorate interferences with the healthy use of medications. The final section of the book offers detailed technical recommendations for addressing pharmacological treatment resistance. It tackles issues that include countertransference-driven irrational prescribing; primitive dynamics, such as splitting and projective identification; and the overlap between psychopharmacological treatment resistance and the dynamics of treatment nonadherence and nonresponse in integrated and collaborative medical care settings. By putting the individual patient back at the center of the therapeutic equation, psychodynamic psychopharmacology, as outlined in this book, offers a model that moves beyond compliance and emphasizes instead the alliance between patient and prescriber. In doing so, it empowers patients to become more active contributors in their own recovery"--