Integrated Behavioral Healthcare Positioning Mental Health Practice With Medical/Surgical Practice

There exists a conceptual and practical division between professionals that help people with physical/medical problems and those that help people with mental/behavioral problems. In this dualism, individuals with physical problems, like a broken bone, go to a medical doctor and individuals with behavioral problems, like a broken marriage, go to a mental health professional. If all medical problems were due to physical causes and all mental problems were due to psychosocial causes, then diagnosis and treatment would be clear. However, this is not the case. Broken bones are caused by behavioral problems (e.g., marital abuse, alcoholism, poor diet). Medical problems are treated by behavioral changes (diet, exercise, and other lifestyle changes). And most medical treatments require, and can be defeated, by behavioral compliance problems with the prescribed regimen (pill taking, showing up for the scheduled procedures, etc.). Moreover, mental health problems can be caused and treated by physiological factors (neuron-chemical imbalances, endocrine problems, and psychotropic drugs). Thus, fragmenting the treatment of the mental and physical problems into two distinct realms makes little conceptual or practical sense. Integrated Behavioral Healthcare describes the promise of integrating behavioral and medical care in the primary care setting - a move that recently has been gaining momentum. It provides a roadmap of the emerging directions integrated behavioral healthcare is taking and lays out the steps the mental health professional needs to take, in training and in modifying their clinical practice, to adapt to the new system of healthcare.Cummings, Nicholas A. is the author of 'Integrated Behavioral Healthcare Positioning Mental Health Practice With Medical/Surgical Practice' with ISBN 9780121987619 and ISBN 0121987612.