Psychopharmacology attitudes, beliefs, and practices among systemic family therapists and supervisors.

Many aspects of systemic family therapist (SFT) training and competence play a vital role in effective treatment and professional satisfaction. One area that has been significantly overlooked by many SFTs is the role of psychotropic medication (PM) in conjunction with talk therapy for optimal mental health outcomes. This study explores the current status of PM in SFT training and clinical practice. Our findings highlight the continued struggle of SFTs in their comfort level with addressing the PM needs of their clients. We identified a perceived inadequacy of SFT training and supervision regarding PM use. SFTs around the world need to find educational opportunities to improve their competence in working with their clients and their prescribed medications. Additional studies need to be conducted on strategies and mechanisms to improve client care. If SFTs are ignorant of PM, their treatment of clients-who often use PM-will be compromised.

Models for integrating behavioral medicine on a family medicine in-patient teaching service.

Training physicians to effectively assess, diagnose, and treat patients' behavioral health concerns begin in residency. While this training is increasingly more common in outpatient educational settings, there is also a great need to teach physicians to practice behavioral medicine with patients who are hospitalized. However, teaching family medicine resident physicians to understand, value, and practice essential behavioral health knowledge and skills during inpatient rotations can be a challenge for both residents and educators. In this article, we describe three models of inpatient behavioral medicine teaching, each with examples of practical content and teaching methods. We discuss strategies for success and potential barriers to overcome while teaching in the inpatient setting. Helping patients choose to change their health behaviors, which likely contribute in part to the reasons for their hospitalizations in the first place, should begin while patients are still in the hospital. Models of teaching, such as those presented here, can help improve the way we train physicians to address behavioral health needs with hospitalized patients.