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Mental Health Moving Forward
Mental health disorders are on the rise, but are training and treatment methods keeping pace?
While the number of those with mental health disorders in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the past 20 years, some wonder if training for the experts treating those disorders is keeping pace with the growing problem.
There are questions about whether that treatment — administered by clinical psychologists and therapists — is done using out-of-date methods that lack scientific rigor. A new report in Psychological Science In the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, has a panel of distinguished clinical scientists calling for reform of clinical psychology training programs while appealing for a new accreditation system to ensure that mental health clinicians are trained to use the most effective and current research to treat their patients.
The escalating cost of mental healthcare treatment may be at least partly to blame for the reduced use of psychological treatments and for care being shifted to general healthcare facilities. This is despite the fact that methods like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) have been shown to be the most effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and has the fewest side effects. The experts cite one study that shows only 30 percent of psychologists were trained to perform CBT for PTSD and only half of those psychologists elected to use it. That means that six of every seven sufferers were not getting the best care available from their clinicians.
Of major concern is the absence of standardized, science-based training, ensuring that many don’t use the most effective or most current treatment methods. Fortunately, a new system is already under development, called the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (see www.pcsas.org for more info).
Dual Diagnosis Treatment
Mental healthcare and addiction treatment often go hand in hand with co-occurring disorders becoming increasingly common. If you or someone you know is struggling with an addiction and a mental health issue, call La Paloma at our toll-free, 877-345-1887. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.
