According to a report in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the percentage of patients' visits to psychiatrists for psychotherapy, or talk therapy, fell from 44 percent in 1996-97 to 29 percent in 2004-05.
The percentage of psychiatrists using psychotherapy with all their patients also dropped, from about 19 percent to 11 percent, the report said.
Lead author Dr. Ramin Mojtabai of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore says the reimbursement given to psychiatrists by insurance companies at a lower rate for a 45-minute psychotherapy visit as compared to three 15-minute medication visits is a major contributing factor in the decline of this practice.
Other factors include the marketing of psychotropic medications such as antidepressants that are used more by patients suffering from any such mental problems. Antidepressants have now become one of the largest-selling classes of drugs.
The findings are based on an annual survey of office visits to U.S. doctors. Researchers examined data on 14,108 psychiatric office visits during a 10-year period.
Psychotherapy is an interpersonal, relational intervention used by trained psychotherapists to aid clients in problems of living. This usually includes a range of techniques based on experiential relationship building, dialogue, communication and behavior change and that are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family).
