The Clinician's Illusion and the Psychotherapy Practice: An Application of Stochastic Modeling

The Clinician's Illusion and the Psychotherapy Practice An Application of Stochastic Modeling

The caseload of practicing clinicians tends to be unrepresentative of the population of psychotherapy patients. This results from the fact that, although the majority of patients use relatively few treatment sessions, the majority of a clinician's time is spent with longer term cases-a minority...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of consulting and clinical psychology Vol. 62; no. 4; pp. 679 - 685
Main Authors: Vessey, John T, Howard, Kenneth I, Lueger, Robert J, Kächele, Horst, Mergenthaler, Erhardt
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States American Psychological Association 01-08-1994
Subjects:
Human
Humans
Length of treatment
Mental Disorders - therapy
Patients - psychology
Psychologists
Psychology
Psychology, Clinical
Psychotherapy
Stochastic Modeling
Stochastic models
Stochastic Processes
Therapy
Time Factors
Work Load
Workforce
Workload
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Summary:The caseload of practicing clinicians tends to be unrepresentative of the population of psychotherapy patients. This results from the fact that, although the majority of patients use relatively few treatment sessions, the majority of a clinician's time is spent with longer term cases-a minority of patients consume the majority of services. Here, a stochastic model is used to describe the development of caseloads under 4 different treatment regimens. It is shown that a psychotherapy practice will reach a steady state (a stable case mix) in relatively short time and at that this will limit the open appointment slots available each week to serve new patients. Implications for training and clinic staffing are discussed.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0022-006X
1939-2117
DOI:10.1037/0022-006X.62.4.679