Psychotherapy

The number of Americans who received psychotherapy increased slightly from 1987 to 1997, according to a large national study, and rose significantly for two groups: older adults and the unemployed. But the average length of time patients spent in the consulting room dropped precipitously over the same period, the study found, and the percentage of patients who combined psychotherapy with psychiatric medication nearly doubled. The researchers said that the findings reflected the effect of managed care and the growing popularity of brief forms of psychotherapy, as well as the wider use of antidepressants and other drugs to treat many mental disorders.

Gilbert Clapperton, a clinical psychologist who established Loyola University's Department of Psychology more than four decades ago, died Dec. 29 of lung cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The longtime Lutherville resident was 71. Dr. Clapperton, the son of an anesthesiologist and a homemaker, was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine. After graduating from Lewiston High School in 1957, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1962 from Bates College. He earned a master's degree in clinical psychology in 1963 from the University of New Hampshire, and a year later, his doctorate in the discipline from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

An Anne Arundel County circuit judge has interpreted a mentally ill man's demand that police shoot him during a standoff last year as a suicide attempt and sentenced him to lengthy house arrest and a probation that includes intensive therapy."

A Woodstock man pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to participating in a scheme to fraudulently bill Medicaid for more than $4 million in services that were never performed, according to the Maryland attorney general's office. Guy Anthony Bell, 44, of the 2700 block Tallow Tree Road was the chief financial officer from October 2002 until April 2004 for the Bridges Project, which provides psychiatric rehabilitation and therapy for children and adults in Baltimore, according to prosecutors.

Charles Dickens was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Dickens was gone and buried in Westminster Abbey long before Sigmund Freud emerged as the Father of Psychoanalysis. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful could come of the theory being advanced by Baltimore psychiatrist Stephen E. Warres, much to the interest and amusement of his colleagues at Sheppard Pratt. Dickens was dead as a doornail by the turn of the century when Freud conducted his early expeditions into childhood experience and talk therapy.

Bad day at the office? Spouse acting unresponsive? Generally feeling bummed? Help is just an e-mail away.As the Internet becomes an increasingly popular venue for advice-wielding therapists, Web counseling has emerged as one of the hottest debates in psychotherapy.The dozens of individuals plying their trade online say e-mail counseling is not only convenient and affordable but, for some dTC people, also more conducive to free expression. Skeptics call it an oxymoron."You can tell a lot of stuff from someone's voice," notes Dr. Douglas Weiss, owner of the Fort Worth Heart to Heart clinic for sexual addiction.

Traditional psychotherapy is dead -- at best, it's gasping on life support. The classic techniques of mental excavation, with their gradual building of trust between client and therapist, have gone the way of the rotary phone. Once common, the idea of being in therapy for years is now considered an inefficient indulgence reserved for those determined narcissists who can pay "out of pocket." Most people who need help get something brief, forced to settle for managed-care crumbs of three months or 10 sessions a year, if that much.

In a study sure to please the telecom industry, researchers have found that psychotherapy via telephone can significantly help patients suffering from depression when used in conjunction with antidepressant drugs. Published in last week's Journal of the American Medical Association, the report is the first large-scale look at the use of the technique. "Telephone therapy has a lot of potential, based on this study," said Dr. Darrel Regier, director of research at the American Psychiatric Association.

Psychotherapy, in all its guises, seems to be having a big-time identity crisis. Healing wounded minds and hearts has traditionally -- and paradoxically -- been the province of science, but as Harvard Magazine's cover story for January-February suggests, what Freud conceived was really more of an art. He pretty much admitted that himself.Psychoanalyst Alan A. Stone laments latter-day Freudians' failure to extend the master's vision: "Those who stand on Freud's shoulders have not seen farther, they have only seen differently -- and often they have seen less."

When all is well in the writing life of Pat Conroy, words flow to the page like a Low Country river -- rich with life, sweeping along toward something bigger and grander as the current builds strength and momentum. Yet, the waters are treacherous, too. Conroy tends to populate his novels with just about everyone who ever made his life miserable, and they emerge on the page as violent, tyrannical dads, beautiful but duplicitous moms, all of them lording it over fractured homes where horrible things come to pass.

ALBERT ELLIS, 93 Psychotherapy innovator Albert Ellis, one of the most provocative figures in modern psychology and the founder of a renowned psychotherapy institute, died Tuesday in New York of kidney and heart failure after a long illness. In the 1950s, Dr. Ellis invented what he called rational emotive behavior therapy, which stresses that patients can improve their lives by taking control of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors.

Dr. William M. Goldstein, a psychiatrist who taught and wrote about his field, died of cancer yesterday at his Rockville home. He was 63. Born in Baltimore and raised in the Howard Park neighborhood, he was a 1960 graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in Ohio. He was a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Goldstein, who practiced in Chevy Chase for many years, joined the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1975 and taught its psychiatric residents the principles of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

Dr. Jerome D. Frank, a retired John Hopkins professor of psychiatry who was widely known as an early and outspoken critic of nuclear weapons, died yesterday of complications from dementia at Roland Park Place, his home for the past nine years. He was 95. A New York City native educated at Harvard University and its medical school, Dr. Frank came to the Hopkins in 1940 as a junior assistant resident to study under Dr. Adolf Meyer, founder of its department of psychiatry. After several years, he became an Army psychiatrist and served with Hopkins physicians in the Pacific -- an experience that gave him insight into the psychological effects of war on the health and well-being of soldiers.

In a study sure to please the telecom industry, researchers have found that psychotherapy via telephone can significantly help patients suffering from depression when used in conjunction with antidepressant drugs. Published in last week's Journal of the American Medical Association, the report is the first large-scale look at the use of the technique. "Telephone therapy has a lot of potential, based on this study," said Dr. Darrel Regier, director of research at the American Psychiatric Association.

The number of Americans who received psychotherapy increased slightly from 1987 to 1997, according to a large national study, and rose significantly for two groups: older adults and the unemployed. But the average length of time patients spent in the consulting room dropped precipitously over the same period, the study found, and the percentage of patients who combined psychotherapy with psychiatric medication nearly doubled. The researchers said that the findings reflected the effect of managed care and the growing popularity of brief forms of psychotherapy, as well as the wider use of antidepressants and other drugs to treat many mental disorders.

Charles Dickens was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Dickens was gone and buried in Westminster Abbey long before Sigmund Freud emerged as the Father of Psychoanalysis. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful could come of the theory being advanced by Baltimore psychiatrist Stephen E. Warres, much to the interest and amusement of his colleagues at Sheppard Pratt. Dickens was dead as a doornail by the turn of the century when Freud conducted his early expeditions into childhood experience and talk therapy.

ALBERT ELLIS, 93 Psychotherapy innovator Albert Ellis, one of the most provocative figures in modern psychology and the founder of a renowned psychotherapy institute, died Tuesday in New York of kidney and heart failure after a long illness. In the 1950s, Dr. Ellis invented what he called rational emotive behavior therapy, which stresses that patients can improve their lives by taking control of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors.

Dr. Jerome D. Frank, a retired John Hopkins professor of psychiatry who was widely known as an early and outspoken critic of nuclear weapons, died yesterday of complications from dementia at Roland Park Place, his home for the past nine years. He was 95. A New York City native educated at Harvard University and its medical school, Dr. Frank came to the Hopkins in 1940 as a junior assistant resident to study under Dr. Adolf Meyer, founder of its department of psychiatry. After several years, he became an Army psychiatrist and served with Hopkins physicians in the Pacific -- an experience that gave him insight into the psychological effects of war on the health and well-being of soldiers.

Traditional psychotherapy is dead -- at best, it's gasping on life support. The classic techniques of mental excavation, with their gradual building of trust between client and therapist, have gone the way of the rotary phone. Once common, the idea of being in therapy for years is now considered an inefficient indulgence reserved for those determined narcissists who can pay "out of pocket." Most people who need help get something brief, forced to settle for managed-care crumbs of three months or 10 sessions a year, if that much.

When all is well in the writing life of Pat Conroy, words flow to the page like a Low Country river -- rich with life, sweeping along toward something bigger and grander as the current builds strength and momentum. Yet, the waters are treacherous, too. Conroy tends to populate his novels with just about everyone who ever made his life miserable, and they emerge on the page as violent, tyrannical dads, beautiful but duplicitous moms, all of them lording it over fractured homes where horrible things come to pass.