TY - JOUR
T1 - 'A factory of therapy'
T2 - accountability and the monitoring of psychological therapy in IAPT
AU - Bruun, Mikkel Kenni
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023/7/19
Y1 - 2023/7/19
N2 - Since the introduction of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in NHS England, psychological therapy has gained traction as ‘evidence-based’ and ‘effective’ in both clinical and economic terms. In the process, psychotherapeutic care has been reconstituted as highly manualised, standardised, and quantifiable. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork with mental health practitioners, this paper examines some common tensions that practitioners experience in their daily work where psychotherapy is sought within the framework of evidence-based medicine (EBM). For therapists working within IAPT, extensive monitoring and practices of accountability have come to undermine psychotherapeutic efforts to care for patients as ‘people’. As a result, many practitioners now feel that they are working in a ‘factory of therapy’ whereby psychological treatment is recast in the service of outcome measures, and by which critique of the IAPT service, as well as caring relations within it, have been precluded.
AB - Since the introduction of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in NHS England, psychological therapy has gained traction as ‘evidence-based’ and ‘effective’ in both clinical and economic terms. In the process, psychotherapeutic care has been reconstituted as highly manualised, standardised, and quantifiable. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork with mental health practitioners, this paper examines some common tensions that practitioners experience in their daily work where psychotherapy is sought within the framework of evidence-based medicine (EBM). For therapists working within IAPT, extensive monitoring and practices of accountability have come to undermine psychotherapeutic efforts to care for patients as ‘people’. As a result, many practitioners now feel that they are working in a ‘factory of therapy’ whereby psychological treatment is recast in the service of outcome measures, and by which critique of the IAPT service, as well as caring relations within it, have been precluded.
KW - psychological therapy
KW - mental healthcare
KW - IAPT
KW - monitoring
KW - accountability
KW - CBT
KW - evidence-based psychotherapy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85165469147&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13648470.2023.2217773
DO - 10.1080/13648470.2023.2217773
M3 - Article
SN - 1469-2910
SP - 1
EP - 17
JO - Anthropology and Medicine
JF - Anthropology and Medicine
ER -
