Description
Medication alone is not as successful in treating anxiety disorders as psychotherapy in combination with medication. Conduct current and scholarly research about why this is the case.
Write an essay about your findings on why medication alone is not as effective as psychotherapy in combination with medication for treating anxiety disorders. Provide specific statistics to back up these claims.
Include at least five scholarly references in addition to
Dziegielewski, S. (2015). DSM-5: Assessment, Planning, and Practice Strategy. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons INC.
Explanation & Answer
Attached.
Running head: WHY MEDICATION ALONE IS NOT EFFECTIVE
Why Medication Alone Is Not Effective
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WHY MEDICATION ALONE IS NOT EFFECTIVE
WHY MEDICATION ALONE IS NOT EFFECTIVE
Psychotherapy is the treatment of mental illness or disorder where a health professional
explores a patients thought, feelings and their behaviors in an attempt to improve their health and
well being. Therapies can include cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy among
others. Medication is the use of medicines to cure the symptoms of mental illness. Patients with
anxiety disorder experience impairments in psychological functioning such as poor emotional
health, low occupational level, depression, mood disorders and even suicidal thoughts. When
anxiety disorders are not treated effectively, a patient risks becoming mentally disabled.
There have not been significant studies to whether medication treatment or combination
psychotherapy is the best treatment plan for anxiety disorder due to both treatments being used
separately. Little research has been devoted to conducting studies on the combination of medical
treatment and psychotherapy. The study has also been hindered by the fact that when the patients
seek anxiety disorder treatment from a primary care physician, they are likely to be offered
medication and when they seek treatment from a psychotherapist, they are offered physiotherapy
as opposed to medical treatment (Dziegielewski, 2015).
Patients also have different preferences where they specifically seek medication for the
symptoms they experience making it difficult to ascertain whether a combination of medication
and psychotherapy is better than medication. Both psychotherapy and medication are
recommended as a treatment for anxiety disorder but different patients respond differently where
some respond better to one or the other. T...