The catalytic function in psychotherapy

Managed mental health care requires that psychotherapists translate their theories to fit consumer-driven systems. Core concepts such as motivation, resistance, and psychopathology can be understood operationally, as they relate to the relative flexibility and adaptability of the patient challenged by ordinary life events. When psychotherapy is viewed as inherently a change-facilitating process, subjugated to and oriented toward such events, the therapist's function is catalytic rather than analytic. The objective of therapy is to reinforce motives and mitigate obstacles to necessary change, through timely, focused interventions. A model is presented and case examples are used to illustrate how such an objective may be reached.