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Therapeutic conversations are increasingly replacing mental health medications
A new study says more talk and fewer pills are being used to support Americans’ mental health.
According to the findings, published in early May in the American Journal of Psychiatry is playing an increasing role in mental health care, while medications prescribed without concomitant therapy are becoming less common.
“After years of American mental health care moving toward greater use of psychotropic medications, the pendulum has swung back to psychotherapy,” lead researcher Dr. Mark Olfson said in a press release. He is a professor of epidemiology and psychiatry at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
According to the researchers, among Americans who use outpatient mental health care, the percentage of those who rely on psychotherapy alone has risen to 15 percent in 2021, up from less than 12 percent in 2018.
At the same time, the proportion of those who rely on medication alone has fallen from 68% to 62%, the study shows. Medications include antidepressants, antipsychotics and ADHD medications.
At the same time, the percentage of patients receiving psychotherapy from psychiatrists dropped from 41% to 34%, the researchers reported.
“Psychiatrists provided psychotherapy to an increasingly smaller percentage of all patients receiving psychotherapy, which may have increased the need for psychiatrists to refer patients to and interact with nonphysician psychotherapists,” Olfson said.
“At the same time, social workers and counselors who are not psychologists have taken a more active role in providing psychotherapy, and the average number of psychotherapy visits per patient has increased,” he continued.
People also seem to be more willing to stick to appointments for psychotherapy conversations, with more than 17% in 2021 saying they had attended more than 20 sessions, up from less than 14% in 2018.
At the same time, the number of people who discontinued therapy after one or two sessions dropped from 34% in 2018 to 28% in 2021.
Americans are increasingly willing to seek psychotherapy and continue it for as long as needed.
For the study, researchers analyzed data from four surveys of Americans with about 18,000 people who attended mental health clinics.
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