Horses for courses: choosing an evidence based psychological therapy for your patient

TY - JOUR

T1 - Horses for courses

T2 - choosing an evidence based psychological therapy for your patient

AU - McCormack, David

AU - Chalder, Trudie

PY - 2018/6/29

Y1 - 2018/6/29

N2 - Choosing an intervention for a patient experiencing distressing symptoms and/or suffering with a mental disorder is part of routine practice for clinicians. While there are now many effective pharmacological and psychological therapies for mental health problems, syndromes and persistent physical symptoms (e.g. chronic pain), choosing the ‘right’ therapy can sometimes be a challenge. This can certainly be the case when it comes to psychological therapies. There are many different approaches to choose from and many have not been subjected to rigorous study. In this paper, we aim to help inform and guide the busy clinician in choosing a psychological therapy for their patient. We aim to achieve this goal by, (1) providing a brief overview of the major psychotherapy modalities, (2) considering which guidelines to refer to and which psychological therapies have been found to be most effective for the presenting problem(s) seen in clinic. And lastly, (3) we will discuss the limitations of the current guidelines when it comes to co-morbid presentations and consider how this can be best addressed.

AB - Choosing an intervention for a patient experiencing distressing symptoms and/or suffering with a mental disorder is part of routine practice for clinicians. While there are now many effective pharmacological and psychological therapies for mental health problems, syndromes and persistent physical symptoms (e.g. chronic pain), choosing the ‘right’ therapy can sometimes be a challenge. This can certainly be the case when it comes to psychological therapies. There are many different approaches to choose from and many have not been subjected to rigorous study. In this paper, we aim to help inform and guide the busy clinician in choosing a psychological therapy for their patient. We aim to achieve this goal by, (1) providing a brief overview of the major psychotherapy modalities, (2) considering which guidelines to refer to and which psychological therapies have been found to be most effective for the presenting problem(s) seen in clinic. And lastly, (3) we will discuss the limitations of the current guidelines when it comes to co-morbid presentations and consider how this can be best addressed.

KW - psychological therapy

KW - cognitive behaviour therapy

KW - systemic therapy

KW - psychoanalysis

KW - psychodynamic therapy

KW - transdiagnostic

KW - Common Factors

KW - choosing therapy

U2 - 10.1192/bja.2018.30

DO - 10.1192/bja.2018.30

M3 - Article

SN - 2056-4678

JO - BJPsych Advances

JF - BJPsych Advances

ER -