Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:341-344
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
A biopsychosocial approach to treating patients with affective disorders
RG Vasile, JA Samson, J Bemporad, KL Bloomingdale, D Creasey, BT Fenton, JE Gudeman and JJ Schildkraut
The authors describe the development of an affective disorders consultation
service that implemented a biopsychosocial model of subspecialty
consultation within a university-affiliated community mental health center.
They retrospectively analyzed the first 2 years of consultations, assessing
the process of consultation and examining patterns of consultee inquiries
and consultation recommendations. Consultants recommended combined
psychopharmacologic and psychodynamic therapies for most patients and found
psychodynamic psychotherapy strikingly overlooked by consultees, all of
whom were psychiatrists or other mental health professionals. This
evaluation documents the psychiatric consultees' deemphasis of the
biopsychosocial perspective in clinical practice.
