A fully funded national psychotherapeutic service should be set up immediately within the Health Service Executive (HSE), a new report has said. It claims such a move would be of major benefit in treating mental health problems and would save money in the long term.
Prof Alan Carr, director of UCD's doctoral training programme in clinical psychology who wrote the report, said waiting lists for such services were already too long. He said his research had shown that psychotherapy works and was cost effective, helping to keep people out of hospitals.
Psychotherapy techniques are used by a variety of personnel within the medical sector, including psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers to treat mental problems.
Prof Carr said his study had shown that those who availed of psychotherapy used fewer other medical services, were hospitalised less than those who did not receive psychotherapy and that it could reduce attendance at hospitals and A&E departments. He said the average success rate for cases treated were 65-72 per cent.
Prof Carr said there should be psychotherapists on all primary care teams and more in secondary and tertiarty care systems.
"One of the HSE's problems is that there is already a shortage of clinical psychologists within the health system - about 25 per cent of current posts are vacant. There is also a shortage of child psychologists and social workers. It is unlikely in the future that these professions [ alone] can provide adequate psychotherapy services for people," he said.
Prof Carr said "in the light of this it seems reasonable to develop psychotherapy as a profession".
Prof Carr's report calls for psychotherapy to be developed as a profession within itself, incorporating only evidence-based psychotherapeutic techniques.
His report said psychotherapy should be offered by statutorily registered therapists. "Currently there is no statutory registration," he said, adding that it should be introduced immediately. He said this would protect patients and ensure they receive therapy from professionals with accredited training.
Another recommendation of his report was that psychotherapy training should be dev eloped in partnership with academic centres such as universities, institutes and clinical agencies.
Prof Carr called for a national system to be developed to monitor the effectiveness of psychotherapy and develop programmes specifically tailored to Irish patients.
Prof Carr said the recommendations were consistent with the Government's national health policy which was detailed in the Vision For Change report.
Dr Brion Sweeney, a consultant psychiatrist with the HSE and chairman of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy which commissioned the report, said it suggested the scope of psychotherapy needed to be broadened - from brief interventions using counsellors to more complex interventions "which psychotherapists are best placed to deliver".
Dr Sweeney's organisation has been regulating the training of psychotherapists for 15 years. Accreditation generally requires at least seven years' training, a primary degree and a foundation year in one of the psychotherapeutic disciplines.