Training in mental health is unreasonably long

2010-07-20 Black windup alarm clock faceJust as a quick thought experiment, go over to this piece at Slate discussing medical training, and every time it references “medicine” change that to “mental health.” (Accordingly, change “physicians” and “doctors” to “therapists.”) You’ll find most of it applies perfectly. To wit:

Over the past century, there have been additions to, but few subtractions from, the training process. Residency and fellowship programs became longer and longer … and longer.

and

The long process doesn’t just weed out the incompetent and the lazy from the potential pool of physicians—it deters students who can’t pay for so many years of education or who need to make money quickly to support their families. That introduces a significant class bias into the physician population, depriving a large proportion of the population of doctors who understand their background, values, and challenges.

and

The fundamental problem here is that the argument between traditionalists and reformers [debating the appropriate length of training] is essentially theoretical — we are in an evidence vacuum.

In the time I’ve been in academia, I’ve watched as the requirements for training in mental health have increased dramatically. Family therapist training in California increased from 48 to 60 units based not on science but on workplace competitiveness. (MFTs were fighting clinical social workers for some of the same jobs, and since LCSWs need 60 units of training, MFTs couldn’t really argue that their training at 48 units was equivalent.) I’ve also watched as education in general has gotten much more expensive, and loans harder to come by. And I’ve been enlightened by learning that our 3,000-hour supervised training requirement is based entirely on tradition, and is in virtually no way linked to the science that we now have available (though admittedly, it isn’t much) on how therapist skill develops over time.

Our old apprenticeship model is broken. It’s as true in therapy as it is in medicine. It will be interesting to see how experimentation with medical training goes, as it can blaze the trail for similar efforts in other health care professions like ours. I’m just not sure we should be waiting for doctors to do it first.

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