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Greater Awareness of Psychotherapy’s Benefits Needed

We’d like to highlight a great piece in the NY Times (Sept. 30, see link below) urging increased effort to educate the public about the benefits of psychotherapy. We couldn’t agree more – educating the public about the benefits of behavioral health is a primary mission of Commonwealth Psychology Associates.

Excerpt:

A recent analysis of 33 studies found that patients expressed a three-times-greater preference for psychotherapy over medications.

As well they should: for patients with the most common conditions, like depression and anxiety, empirically supported psychotherapies — that is, those shown to be safe and effective in randomized controlled trials — are indeed the best treatments of first choice. Medications, because of their potential side effects, should in most cases be considered only if therapy either doesn’t work well or if the patient isn’t willing to try counseling.

So what explains the gap between what people might prefer and benefit from, and what they get?

via Psychotherapy’s Image Problem – NYTimes.com.