An Introduction From the New Psychotherapy Columnist

Despite psychiatry's shift toward a biomedical model, emerging research suggests that psychosocial factors make major contributions to the etiology of mental disorders of all kinds and that several types of psychotherapy have been shown to be effective forms of treatment for a range of disorders. Notwithstanding these findings, psychiatrists are doing less psychotherapy and attending less to psychosocial factors in their work with patients. The author surveys some of the underpinnings of this problem and discusses the value of psychotherapy as part of psychiatric practice and training.