The 16-minute Hour: Combining Abbreviated Psychotherapy With Medication Visits. Part 4: Cognitive-behavioral Therapy

Psychiatrists frequently incorporate strategies learned in their psychotherapy training into medication visits. This final installment in a 4-part series focuses on the integration of pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which is the most extensively studied form of psychotherapy for depressive and anxiety disorders. Evidence supporting the value of combined treatment (as compared with pharmacotherapy alone) is strong, but these data come almost exclusively from studies in which the 2 components of treatment were delivered by separate providers. Data are sorely lacking for the integrated approach described in this paper. We hope that the apparent face validity of this approach is evident and helps to foster a new generation of pragmatic research addressing issues that are truly relevant to the contemporary practice of psychiatric medicine, including the possibility that it is more cost-effective when a single provider delivers both modalities.