Three Yale Department of Psychiatry faculty served on an expert panel that resulted in the publication of the document, “Routine Administration of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis as the Standard of Care for Individuals Seeking Treatment for Psychosis.”
Sandra Resnick, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry; Marcia Hunt, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry; and Meaghan Stacy, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, contributed to the guide, which was recently published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The publication provides mental health decision-makers – state and local mental health directors, treatment facility clinical directors, and other stakeholders – with rationale and evidence to support widespread expansion of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp) across mental health systems.
According to the contributors, CBTp is the most well-researched psychotherapeutic intervention for psychotic disorders with 30 years of efficacy, effectiveness, and — more recently — implementation trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews.
“CBTp effect sizes for both positive and negative symptoms tend to be comparable to most antipsychotic medications, and prevailing guidance is to offer CBTp alongside medications and preferably within the context of multidisciplinary care teams,” the authors wrote. “Indeed, CBTp is recommended as standard of care in U.S. psychosis practice guidelines, yet, remarkably, fewer than one percent of Americans with a diagnosed psychotic disorder have access to this treatment. As one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, one would be hard-pressed to find another condition for which the health and economic effects are so profound, yet for which well-researched efficacious treatment is so inaccessible. This must change.”