Mental Health Treatments - Latest information

The mental health care system has undergone massive changes over past decades with an increasing shift away from institutionalisation to community based care. Drug company breakthroughs have also occurred, so that it is now possible to treat most mental disorders with medicine, rather than with psychotherapy alone. As a result, mental health care is often offered in the form of medicine. Drug companies, for their part, now market directly to potential patients who, in turn ask their doctors to prescribe specific medicines. Patients and physicians both have come to expect a medical solution to mental health problems; due in some part to the use of the Internet for patients to resource and find out a large range of information about specific drug treatments.

This reliance on medicine to fix mental health problems has, however, created problems. In an ideal world, psychiatric medicines should be prescribed by a licensed psychiatrist who possesses expert knowledge of mental health issues however a world wide shortage of psychiatrists creates a major problem; this shortage of qualified Psychiatrists being particularly acute in rural and remote areas of Australia.

Two alternative classes of professionals exist who may increasingly be able to fill the void to a certain extent; GP's (General Practicioners) and Psychologists. GP's are able to prescribe medicines, but by necessity of their general medical calling, cannot treat mental illness as more than just a sideline or in addition to other patient treatments. Psychologists, in contrast, are expert with regard to mental illness, but are not able to prescribe regardless of how well they are trained and how skilled they are.

An argument can be raised for Psychologists to be able to prescribe psychiatric medicines if they are properly trained and licensed to do so. Psychologists have typically completed five or more years of clinical training in mental health diagnosis and treatment, have completed a hospital residency and have practiced under supervision for an extended period before being allowed to practice independently.

Psychologists deal with psychiatric medicines on a regular basis given that many of their patients are on them and as a treating professional must become aware of what medications are used for whatcondition in order to effectively treat their patient.

In many cases, Psychologists may actually be in better positions than Psychiatrists to know when medication adjustments should be made. Typicaly they see their patients more often thatn Psychiatrists who due to patient load and demand may only see a patient 4-8 times in a year.

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Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention (PPEI) is another major trend that is is increasingly being considered effective in reducing the likelihood of mental health issues arising. And whilst jurisdictions around the world are increasingly recognising the value of PPEI considerable evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of specific kinds of interventions for mental illness prevention and to a lesser extent mental health promotion, mental health promotion and illness prevention (MHPIP) remain underdeveloped in many regions and countries.

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