Where Have All the Therapists Gone?

Talk therapy has been proven an extremely effective treatment for depression, but it’s a bit of a dying institution, according to a recent New York Times article. In fact, fewer than 11 percent of psychiatrists offer traditional 45-minute, weekly talk therapy sessions for all patients. Instead, most of them see hundreds of patients every few months for 15 minutes each — just enough time to ask a few questions and write up an antidepressant prescription.

Why? Most insurance policies discourage talk therapy — doctors end up earning less for a 45-minute therapy session than a 15-minute medication visit. Many psychiatrists who still offer talk therapy treat the “worried wealthy,” people who can afford to pay up to $600 an hour in cash.

Psychiatrist Dr. Donald Levin said he and many others tried to hold strong after insurance companies stopped covering talk therapy. “But one by one, we accepted that that craft was no longer economically viable. Most of us had kids in college. And to have your income reduced that dramatically was a shock to all of us.”

One of Dr. Levin’s patients says he couldn’t find a psychiatrist who offered talk therapy and could write prescriptions, too. Dr. Levin covers him on the medication front, but Levin persuaded him to get additional therapy from a psychologist (who, unlike psychiatrists, do not go to medical school and cannot write prescriptions). New York Times

What about you? Do you get talk therapy?