The challenge of psychotherapy-pharmacotherapy integration: Psychodynamic aspects

Abstract

Association of psychotherapy and psychopharmacotherapy is a frequent and often indispensable practice. Understanding the psychodynamics of the patient-psychotherapist relationship, characterizing the combined treatment, and the triad patient-psychotherapist-psychopharmacotherapist, concerning split treatment, is essential, since it can lead to treatment failure if denied or poorly understood. The present study aims at reviewing the psychodynamic and technical aspects of psychopharmacologic and psychotherapeutic treatment integration, as an attempt to find the most adequate way to deal with the transference and countertransference aspects involved in these therapeutic modalities. Copyright © Revista de Psiquiatria do Rio Grande do Sul - SPRS.