Managed Care and Brief, Intermittent Psychotherapy Throughout the Life Cycle

Brief, intermittent psychotherapy throughout the life cycle now has over three decades of clinical experience and empirical research. It was developed long before the current cost-containment climate and is not a response to the need to bring down mental health-care expenditures. Yet, it is a natural response to managed care, and one that is in direct contrast to the new, popular utilization review and usual case management. It lacks the artificiality inherent in benefit designs that directly apply session limits, or indirectly discourage number of sessions by use of implied formulas.