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There are two broad classes of treatments for mental disorders: medical and psychological. There are many, many, varieties of each--over 250 by one recent count. Many of these treatments have been studied carefully and shown to be effective, but others have not. Just as treatments for physical problems are sometimes successful and sometimes not, so are treatments for mental problems sometimes successful and sometimes not. In both cases treatment is a good bet. Even though cancer can't always be cured, nobody would consider not treating it; the same thing should be true of mental disorders. Just as with physical disorders, the first step in treatment is diagnosis. It would be stupid to remove an appendix if a person had pneumonia, but exactly right if the person had acute appendicitis; similarly, it would be stupid to try insight therapy with a person in the midst of a severe psychotic episode, or to prescribe the wrong drug to a depressed person. The treatment should be tailored, not just to the problem diagnosed, but to the individual person with the problem. Thus consumers should be sure that the professional they contact doesn't use a "one size fits all" approach to therapy, unless they have made sure that the therapy is a perfect fit for their problem. Partly because of the importance of diagnosis, we cannot recommend therapy via the Internet, although many therapists are now delivering counseling via computer. It may be helpful in some cases, but we regard such therapy as unproven. This site does not offer therapy or even advice; it offers information and ways to access services. The first step in diagnosis, and hence the first part of a treatment program, should be a thorough physical examination, even though a person has obvious mental problems (another reason that therapy by Internet is questionable). For example, the person might be delirious, but the cause could be exposure to a toxic substance, or drug abuse, or a serious illness, or exhaustion, or a tumor. If the problem is physical, then medical treatment is clearly the first step to take. Even when the problem does not have an obvious physical cause, the underlying, although not fully understood, problem is almost certainly physical, and medication is again the first step in treatment. For example, we don't know what the physical basis for anxiety is, but severe anxiety can usually be helped by medication, which suggests that it has a physical basis. In still other cases, medical treatment is not indicated, but an appropriate type of psychotherapy should be selected from among the many types available. The broad classes of therapy include individual, group, and family therapies, along with several types of behavior therapy and hypnotherapy. You can learn about the general characteristics of a few types by clicking on one of the choices below. Additional information about medications and therapies is included with the specific diagnoses on this site, or at other sites to which you will be referred. However, there are as many as 200 somewhat different types of psychotherapy. That's too many to cover on a web site, and too many for visitors to the site to read about even if all of them were described. Therefore, when people seek services they should ask providers about the type of therapy they use, and evidence (not just their word) that the therapy is effective for the problem presented. Finally, some problems are best left alone, and no treatment should be recommended. Medications Last updated 12/19/03 |
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