TUESDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Fewer psychiatrists are providing psychotherapy to their patients during office visits.

The trend, noted by researchers publishing in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, appears to be due to fewer psychiatrists trained or specializing in psychotherapy and an increase in the number of drugs available, along with a reluctance by managed care to pay for psychotherapy.

Committing ourselves or a loved one into a mental health facility is frightening. We remember movies where mental health patients run amok, rock uncontrollably or froth at the mouth. Pills are forced down seemingly unwilling patients and half of them don't seem to know why they are there. Doctors and nurses who see this every day can seem unsympathetic. And stories like the recent death of a Jamaican mental health patient who was left to die on the floor of a hospital strike fear in all of us.

A mental health provider was kind enough to leave the below comment on my blog. I found it so unsettling that I want to put it front and center as a post. I personally feel that this mental health provider is an absolute hero for standing up for her patient the way she did. If only every woman with depression or PPD had a patient advocate like her!!! Please read and let me know what you think. (I just wish I knew what insurance company this was.....)

Anonymous said:

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- If a depressed teen doesn't respond to treatment with commonly prescribed antidepressants the first time around, new research suggests there's still hope.