GPs mustn't be dismayed about grasp of cognitive therapy

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7360.390

BMJ 2002;325:390 ( 17 August )

Letters

GPs mustn't be dismayed about grasp of cognitive therapy

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ No one should be surprised when a brief training in cognitive therapy proves ineffective in improving a patient's anxietyor depression after six months.¹ As a psychologist, I havetaught cognitive therapy interventions in courses for graduatestudents, psychiatry residents, and primary care doctors. I recognisethat none of these courses results in a skill base that can beimplemented immediately to improve patients'outcome.

Graduate students need several years of internships to become effective cognitive therapists. Psychiatry residents have difficultyintegrating this model into their paradigm, whether that be psychopharmacologicalor psychodynamic. The most that can be expected from primary caredoctors, given the amount of training they receive and the amountof time they have to interact with patients, is much less thanthe authors hopedfor.

A more reasonable goal would be to educate primary care doctors in four aspects of cognitive therapy. They should . . . [Full text of this article]

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