Let’s Talk About Psychotherapy

While those psychiatrists who value psychotherapy often worry about the marginalization of psychotherapy in psychiatry, APA’s 2020 Annual Meeting has much to offer the psychiatrist-psychotherapist. There are roughly three dozen sessions focusing on psychotherapy. A quick search on the Session Search tool on the Annual Meeting website identifies 23 sessions in which psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are the primary topics. However, over a dozen other sessions are listed under other primary topics that feature psychotherapy.

While a number of sessions aim to review and deepen participants’ skills in some of the most commonly practiced forms of psychotherapy, such as dialectical behavior therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapies, interpersonal therapy, motivational interviewing, and group therapy, many other sessions explore novel psychotherapeutic modalities, innovative adaptations of mainstream psychotherapies, or integrative psychotherapeutic approaches that incorporate skills and techniques from different schools of thought, depending on the current needs of the patient.

Indeed, there seems to be an integrative mood at this year’s Annual Meeting, with many of the psychotherapy-focused presentations exploring ways to integrate psychotherapies or to use psychotherapeutic skills to enhance other treatment approaches, whether through the use of motivational interviewing or acceptance and commitment therapy to enhance pharmacotherapy, the value of the psychiatrist’s psychotherapeutic expertise in collaborative care consultation, or the use of psychedelic medicines to optimize psychotherapeutic learning. The integrative mood is also reflected in several presentations on integrating psychodynamics and neurobiology.

Many of the psychotherapy offerings explore ways to deal with complex clinical problems, including complicated grief, sexual problems, severe personality disorders, trauma, and suicidality. Others explore ways to optimize psychotherapeutic care for specific populations, including older adults, underserved communities, and populations vulnerable to victimization, and to help clinicians develop cultural sensitivities and illuminate racial blind spots.

The health of clinicians is another focus, and several sessions highlight the value of psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic skills for them. This includes sessions helping clinicians to recognize and manage difficult transferences and countertransferences in psychiatric practice or on collaborative care teams, as well as the application of psychotherapeutic approaches to counter burnout.

Further, an interest in the next generation of psychiatrist-psychotherapists is evident, with five sessions focusing on the needs of psychiatric trainees and exploring ways to enhance psychotherapy training for psychiatrists.

Lastly, the seventh annual meeting of the APA Caucus on Psychotherapy will be held on Sunday, April 26, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Notary Hotel. The caucus is the only authorized body within APA to specifically tend to the interests, concerns, and needs of psychiatrists who are invested in psychotherapy as a core aspect of psychiatric identity and practice. All psychiatrists with an interest in psychotherapy and biopsychosocial psychiatry are invited and encouraged to attend. ■