The journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry
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J Am Acad Psychoanal Dyn Psychiatry · Jan 2006
Case ReportsPsychodynamic psychotherapy: a core conceptual model and its application.
Contemporary American psychiatry, influenced by the "biologic revolution" with its emphasis on a brain-disease model of mental illness, and operating in a managed care delivery system, is in danger of relinquishing its listening and talking functions--psychotherapy--in favor of prescribing drugs. However, despite remarkable advances in the neurosciences, there is still no pharmaceutical magic bullet. ⋯ This core conceptual model has significant heuristic value in treating patients and in teaching psychotherapy to psychiatric residents. With its emphasis on the power of the doctor-patient relationship, it teaches residents an effective body of knowledge that helps them define their professional identity-as psychiatrists whose most effective therapeutic tool is themselves, not the drugs they dispense.