The Impact Of Managed Care On The Practice Of Psychotherapy: Innovation, Implementation And Controversy

-- What is new and different about psychotherapy practice under managed care?
-- How does managed care affect treatment delivery?
-- Why do so many psychotherapists object to managed care?

In this important new book, Drs. Alperin and Phillips have invited experts at the forefront of the mental health field, representing a wide variety of backgrounds, to answer these and many other questions regarding the impact managed care on the practice of psychotherapy.

The text is divided into three parts. Part I links managed care to other changes in contemporary practice -- including technological advances, options for reorganization of service deliver working with the case manager, and the prevalence of psychoactive drugs in treatment.

Part II considers four major approaches to treatment in terms of managed care guideline Contributors discuss and analyze the areas of focused integrative psychotherapy, brief group psychotherapy and managed mental health care, family systems therapy, and hypnotherapy.

Finally, in Part III the authors tackle some of the major controversies that have rocked the field, from the undermining of psychodynamic therapy to questions of confidentiality and shifting liability, and, in fact, whether psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy is compatible with managed care at all. The book closes with an innovative model for restructuring managed heal care -- one that deals effectively with the needs of individuals whose problems do not fit within the confines of brief therapy.

The Impact of Managed Care on the Practice of Psychotherapy is a book that clear defines a major fault line, and will therefore serve as a vital resource and reference for eve mentalhealth professional's day-to-day choices and long-term planning.