Pharmacotherapy as an intervention during the stages of psychotherapy

Pharmacotherapy may be integrated into the process of psychotherapy by construing it as one of many interventions available to the physician-psychotherapist, rather than maintaining a strict dichotomy between verbal and pharmacological techniques. Each set of interventions influences cerebral electro-chemical processes and each takes place within an evolving therapeutic relationship which proceeds through different stages. Medications, like verbal interventions, may help or hinder engagement, resistance, transference, countertransference, and working through. One of the major challenges to current clinical psychiatry is the development of firm guidelines for combined therapy.