Sex Therapy On Call

Washington Post: "Some Clients Too Ashamed or Uncomfortable for In-Person Therapy Are Getting Treatment for Sexual Problems Via Phone and Computer
By Jason Feifer
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, June 15, 2004; Page HE01
Michael has received sex therapy at the top of a mountain. He's also had counseling outside his Silicon Valley apartment and in the parking lot of a nearby airport. In each of these locations and many others, he speaks from the privacy of his car. There, he feels he can be more frank with his sexologist than he could inside a therapist's office."

The article goes on to note an important finding about e-therapy:

“Stephen Biggs, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology, surveyed 44 people who said they had received therapy strictly over the Internet. Among these respondents, 16 percent said their therapy involved sexual issues; ages varied and women outnumbered men. Eighty percent (35) said they found the therapy experience somewhat or very positive, but all said they would use online therapy again and “reported that the therapist was empathic,” he said.”

Phone Therapy is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry

Phone Therapy: Does it make sense?

Revitalizing Psychiatry for North Jersey Mental Health: "Some of our clients miss therapy sessions because of the long commute: it takes for them 1-2 hours to get to the office for 1 hour therapy session. Others, especially elderly, sick or disabled people, cannot drive and depend on their relatives or transportation services in order to come for treatment. Many of them do not get the treatment at all for this reason. We also often receive email or phone calls from people leaving far away from our offices, unable to find counselor close to home and asking us for help. Some people told us that it would be much easier for them to explain their problems (especially sexual ones) over the phone from the privacy of their home, car or office, at least initially"

Phone Therapy is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry

Phone psychotherapy and care management for patients on antidepressants

PubMed: "Compared usual primary care for depression with 2 intervention programs: telephone care management and telephone care management plus telephone psychotherapy. Treatment participation rates were 97% for telephone care management and 93% for telephone care management plus psychotherapy. For primary care patients beginning antidepressant treatment, a telephone program integrating care management and structured cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy can significantly improve satisfaction and clinical outcomes. These findings suggest a new public health model of psychotherapy for depression including active outreach and vigorous efforts to improve access to and motivation for treatment."

Phone Therapy is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia: individual, group and phone therapies

PubMed: "Forty-five adults with primary insomnia received cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) implemented in a group therapy format, in individual face-to-face therapy or through brief individual telephone consultations. All 3 treatment modalities produced improvements in sleep that were maintained for 6 months after treatment completion. These results suggest that group therapy and telephone consultations represent cost-effective alternatives to individual therapy for the management of insomnia."

Phone Therapy is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry

Internet-based treatment with telephone support for chronic back pain

PubMed: "The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral intervention with telephone support for chronic back pain. Participants (56) who met the criteria for chronic back pain were randomly assigned to either an Internet-based cognitive behavioral self-help treatment or to a waiting-list control condition. Treatment consisted of education, cognitive skill acquisition, behavioral rehearsal, generalization and maintenance. Results showed statistically significant improvements in catastrophizing, control over pain and ability to decrease pain. Some improvement was found in both the control group and the treatment group. Follow-up results showed that some improvement was maintained. Findings indicate that Internet-based self-help with telephone support, based on established psychological treatment methods, holds promise as an effective approach for treating disability in association with pain."

Psychotherapy for chronic pain is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry

Phone Therapy Helps Depression

prevention.com: "Less than a third of people with depression get adequate treatment, often because they have trouble adjusting to medications or they have too little time for psychotherapy.

In the August 25, 2004 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers reported on a study in which they evaluated if telephone interventions could improve the treatment for depression.

One intervention consisted of the usual primary care for depression plus care management designed to help patients adjust to using antidepressants. The second intervention included eight cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions in addition to care management and the usual primary care.

After 6 months of treatment, patients assigned to get psychotherapy plus care management had significantly lower depression scores, greater subjective improvements in their depression symptoms, and greater satisfaction with their treatment than people who just got the usual primary care for depression. The effects of care management on subjective improvement and satisfaction were smaller, and there were no significant improvements in depression scores in that group. "

Phone Therapy is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry

Phone-based psychotherapy works in depression

healthandage.com: "Patients beginning antidepressant treatment can benefit from phone and outreach-based psychotherapy too, according to a study.
Ideally, depression is treated by a combination of antidepressant drugs and psychotherapy. But, often, face-to-face psychotherapy is not available or the patient doesn't show up for it.
A team at Group Health in Seattle USA has been looking at whether patients can benefit from phone therapy - possibly a more convenient way of delivering treatment. They assigned a group to usual care, usual care plus phone therapy (including outreach visits) and usual care with care management and cognitive behavioural therapy delivered by phone.
Those in the phone therapy groups did better than those receiving just usual care. It's true that phone therapy lacks some of the depth of the person-to-person approach. But clearly it can be of great benefit and is more easily accessible to more people in need of therapy. The team, backed by the National Institute of Mental Health, ia now looking at how phone therapy compares to conventional psychotherapy. "

Phone Therapy is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry

Phone Therapy Helps Treat Depression

depressionissues.com: " Telephone psychotherapy works as adjunct to antidepressants, study finds.

A little bit of psychotherapy on the phone can be a powerful addition to antidepressants for reducing the symptoms of depression, new research shows. The large-scale study in the state of Washington found that 55 percent of people reported their symptoms were 'much improved' after they started taking antidepressant medication. But when eight sessions of telephone therapy were added, 80 percent reported feeling significantly better."

Phone Therapy is available at the Center of Revitalizing Psychiatry