Programme trains 3,500 Bristish therapists in CBT

At the World Congress on Psychosomatic Medicine which opened today in Torino Lord Richard Layard, Professor at the London School of Economics, has provided data on the British experience concerned with Improved Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT).

This programme aims to train 3,500 therapists in CBT. Of the EUR 230 million earmarked for this purpose, 60% is to train therapists to give intensive/low-throughput CBT and 40% to give shorter training in low-intensity/high-throughput CBT. With this initiative, psychological treatment centers within the Nation Health System for providing psychotherapy to patients with mood and anxiety disorders have been established. One is a specialist mental health clinic in multi-ethnic Newham, London. It gives mainly intensive/low-throughput CBT, delivered predominately by psychologists. The other IAPT site, in uni-ethnic Doncaster, Yorkshire, field-tested a model of stepped care where most referrals for anxiety/depression are offered low-intensity/ high-throughput CBT.

The data presented suggest that the initiative has attracted increasing consensus among patients and physicians. Psychotropic drugs in mood and anxiety disorders have a limited impact on the disease course, since their effects are linked to their administration. Evidence-based psychotherapy may provide enduring effects and patients are entitled to benefit from this opportunity, which, so far, has been limited to those who can afford it financially. This model of stepped-care case management is spreading around England, and might especially influence future mental health clinics.