While Americans are dealing with anxiety and depression in greater numbers, and the suicide rate has increased by almost 25% since the turn of the 21st century, access to talk therapy is decreasing. Clinical psychologist Enrico Gnaulati considers the social implications of the decline of psychotherapy and the rise of pharmaceutical drugs like Prozac, cognitive behavior therapy, and managed care.
Resources:
Enrico Gnaulati, Saving Talk Therapy: How Health Insurers, Big Pharma, and Slanted Science are Ruining Good Mental Health Care Beacon Press, 2018
Right on, Enrico! With you 100%. There’s so much more to say–but the need to “prove” that gaining the understanding, recognition, and embodied wisdom of another person who knows how to listen and relate . . . the fact that we need to prove it’s superiority to scripted methods–is a mark of how much ground has been lost to the beancounters and neo-Skinnerians. Incidentally, I do wish you had used the term “education” instead of “training.” And I think there is some room to bring in the findings of contemporary, post-classical psychoanalytic understanding, which help explain the extraordinary complexity and subtlety of what we call the “I”. Thnaks–I will look up your book, and keep on fighting the good fight.
Incidentally, if you could use a clinical colleague, I’m up. The managed care environment finally closed down my clinic after 40 years of practice. Catch me, if you want, at [email protected]