Volume 36 · Number 5
MAY 2006

Combining Pharmacotherapy & Psychotherapy

By Jesse H. Wright, MD, PhD; Michael Hollifield, MD

The question whether combining medication with psychotherapy has a favorable or deleterious effect on treatment outcome has intrigued clinicians and researchers since the earliest days of psychopharmacology. When effective medications for psychiatric disorders were first introduced, some therapists feared that psychopharmacologic treatment would prematurely reduce symptoms and thus have a negative effect on involvement in psychotherapy. Other clinicians predicted that combining treatments would have additive or synergistic effects that would substantially improve treatment results. During the past 4 decades, a number of important studies have compared monotherapy with a combined approach, and clinicians have gained extensive experience in using different methods for combining treatments.

ABOUT THE GUEST EDITORS

Michael Hollifield, MD, is associate professor, Psychiatry and Family and Geriatric Medicine, director, Anxiety Disorders Program, medical director, Biobehavioral Oncology Program, and co-director with Dr. Wright of the cognitive-behavior therapy training course for psychiatry residents at the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY.

Dr. Hollifield received his medical degree with thesis honors from the University of Washington, completed a dual residency training program in Family Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico (UNM), and served on the faculty at UNM for 10 years. During his tenure at UNM, he was a site coordinator for the DSM-IV panic disorder field trial. He is on the Board of Directors of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture, the Editorial Board of General Hospital Psychiatry, a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, and a member of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy.

Dr. Hollifield’s research focuses on the effects of severe trauma and adverse life events on health outcomes, the bio-behavioral mediators of trauma on health outcomes, and prevention and treatment of trauma-related and anxiety disorders. He has developed measures of traumatic events and symptoms in refugees of war, helped develop Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, a novel and effective intervention for nightmares and posttraumatic stress disorder, and conducted the first study comparing acupuncture to cognitive-behavior therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder.

Jesse H, Wright, MD, PhD, is professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, where he also serves as associate chairman and chief of Adult Psychiatry. He is the principal author of the first multimedia computer program for cognitive therapy and the acclaimed self-help book Getting Your Life Back. A DVD-ROM version of his research group’s empirically tested software for computer-assisted cognitive therapy has recently been developed. His newest book, Learning Cognitive-Behavior Therapy: An Illustrated Guide, includes a DVD with video demonstrations of key cognitive-behavior therapy methods.

Dr. Wright was the founding president of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy and the president of the Kentucky Psychiatric Association. He is a fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists. His research interests include the development and testing of computer-aided psychotherapy programs and the interaction between pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. He lectures widely on cognitive-behavior therapy, psychopharmacology, and computer-aided psychotherapy.