The Place of Psychotherapy in Contemporary Psychiatry

Psychotherapy has long been an essential component of clinical psychiatry and many young physicians choose to train in psychiatry residency programs in order to acquire necessary knowledge and skills, and become competent psychotherapists. Recent advances in psychopharmacology and neuroscience, and growing dominance of managed care and evidence-based medicine have had dramatic impacts on health care delivery systems and clinical psychiatry practice. Despite these changes in the field of mental health, psychotherapy still remains a crucial part of clinical psychiatry and comprises a great proportion of psychiatrists’ clinical practice. Hence, accreditation agencies and regulatory bodies determine compulsory minimum requirements for psychiatry residency programs to ensure that residents, at the end of their specialty training, can demonstrate competence in managing their patients through applying different approaches of psychotherapy.