In a quest for accountability in the delivery of health services including mental health services, health care policy makers in both government and private sectors are creating clinical practice guidelines. These developments are a backdrop to current efforts to identify and promote empirically supported psychosocial interventions. Dr. Barlow emphasized that change is already taking place in the practice of psychologists and that managed care has influenced this change. Clinical practice guidelines are standardizing case results.
Questions now arising involve what comes next.
On the other hand, studies validate the effectiveness of other therapies alone, i.e. behavioral therapy, dynamic psychotherapy, cognitive therapy and interpersonal therapy. Psychosocial therapies have been proven to prolong life in metastatic cancer patients, and produced remission in non-metastatic cancer, and good stress reduction treatments have been proven effective in preventing heart attacks. Also, these medications seem to interfere with cognitive-behavioral therapies. OCD and Social Phobias are also shown to be best treated with behavioral therapies. Dr. Barlow informed us that despite overwhelming evidence that behavioral therapies are successful, few patients receive them.