Your current issue (Volume 322 – February 24th) carries a heart-
warming report plus editorial on the necessity of something called ‘the
patient-centred approach’ to medicine’. As a practising psychotherapist
with over 25 years experience can I say how much I welcome this change?
Patients obviously benefit from being regarded as people and not faulty
body parts. But I have a slight sense of déjà vu.
Reading your two articles is a bit like reading a Person-Centred
Counselling textbook which Carl Rogers first penned 50 years ago (1). I
really think you should acknowledge the central contribution of
counselling and psychotherapy to this new ‘holistic’ or ‘emotionally
joined-up’ medical thinking.
Therapists are today a major force in the surgeries. Half the
primary care practices in England now offer some form of counselling to
patients. Between 1992 and 1998, the provision of counselling in Primary
Care has grown from 31% to 51% of all GP practices. Problems of a
psychosocial nature comprise the second largest presenting symptom-cluster
in primary care(2). A 1996 Mori Opinion Poll showed that 86% of
patients would prefer a talking treatment to taking pills. The recent
King Study of depression in Primary Care concluded that the most effective
treatment for the majority of depressions is COUNSELLING - as you reported
only last December. The approach was also cost effective.
In the light of all this perhaps you could accept that that the new
‘patient-centred approach’ marks the moment when doctors started to adapt
ideas from the ‘person-centred approach’ pioneered by psychotherapy?
Perhaps we could get a book by Carl Rogers onto the medical curriculum?
Yours truly,
Phillip Hodson, Fellow of the British Association for Counselling
& Psychotherapy
Rapid Response:
Deja Vu?
Dear Sir,
Your current issue (Volume 322 – February 24th) carries a heart-
warming report plus editorial on the necessity of something called ‘the
patient-centred approach’ to medicine’. As a practising psychotherapist
with over 25 years experience can I say how much I welcome this change?
Patients obviously benefit from being regarded as people and not faulty
body parts. But I have a slight sense of déjà vu.
Reading your two articles is a bit like reading a Person-Centred
Counselling textbook which Carl Rogers first penned 50 years ago (1). I
really think you should acknowledge the central contribution of
counselling and psychotherapy to this new ‘holistic’ or ‘emotionally
joined-up’ medical thinking.
Therapists are today a major force in the surgeries. Half the
primary care practices in England now offer some form of counselling to
patients. Between 1992 and 1998, the provision of counselling in Primary
Care has grown from 31% to 51% of all GP practices. Problems of a
psychosocial nature comprise the second largest presenting symptom-cluster
in primary care(2). A 1996 Mori Opinion Poll showed that 86% of
patients would prefer a talking treatment to taking pills. The recent
King Study of depression in Primary Care concluded that the most effective
treatment for the majority of depressions is COUNSELLING - as you reported
only last December. The approach was also cost effective.
In the light of all this perhaps you could accept that that the new
‘patient-centred approach’ marks the moment when doctors started to adapt
ideas from the ‘person-centred approach’ pioneered by psychotherapy?
Perhaps we could get a book by Carl Rogers onto the medical curriculum?
Yours truly,
Phillip Hodson,
Fellow of the British Association for Counselling
& Psychotherapy
[phillip@philliphodson.co.uk]
--------------------------------
(1) Rogers, C.R. – ‘Client-Centred Therapy’ – London, Constable 1951
(2) (Mellor-Clark Report: “Counselling in Primary Care in the Context of
the NHS Quality Agenda”, BACP Publications, Rugby – ISBN 0-946181-81-0).
Competing interests: No competing interests