A Clinical Pathway Including Psychotherapy Approaches for Managing Emotional Difficulties After Acquired Brain Injury

Emotional difficulties, such as anxiety and depression, are common after acquired brain injury in adults and can influence long-term outcome. Diagnosis in a brain injury context can be difficult. Ideally, rehabilitation approaches should consider the specific treatment of anxiety and depression as well and may include pharmacotherapy, individual psychotherapy, and family interventions. Psychotherapy, especially in regards to longer-term adjustment to brain injury, may have an important adjunctive role in treatment approaches, but adaptations of techniques may be needed. A clinical pathway is described which can help to raise clinicians' awareness, as well as increase detection rates and consideration of the specific role of individual psychotherapy in this clinical population. However, an important caveat is that clinical pathways should not serve as a substitute, but rather a facilitator, for the process of reasoning about individual patients in everyday clinical practice. CNS Spear. 2009;14(11):632-638