Psychotherapy Committee

Co- Chair                                       Co-Chair
alt                           
               Margaret Tuttle, MD                Stephen McDermott, MD          


Committee Reports:


The MPS Psychotherapy Committee has been in existence since about 2012. Its first chairs were Cathy Schen, M.D. and Robert M. Goisman, M.D.  In 2016 Dr. Schen stepped down and Margaret C. Tuttle, M.D. joined Dr. Goisman as committee co-chairs.  Dr. Goisman will be stepping down as co-chair in June of 2020 and will be replaced by Dr. Stephen McDermott who will work with Dr. Tuttle to lead the committee forward.  Its purpose is to encourage psychiatrists to practice psychotherapy as well as pharmacotherapy, forensic psychiatry, and other forms of psychiatric practice.

To this end we have been sponsoring Continuing Medical Education programs on various aspects of the practice of psychotherapy at a frequency of about every 12-18 months.  Our most recent conference was “Psychosocial Treatment of Anxiety Disorders” in April of 2019.  Our next conference, “Psychosocial Approaches to Persons with Neurodevelopmental Disorders,” will take place on November 14, 2020 at the Massachusetts Medical Society headquarters in Waltham, MA.

From time to time we also engage in other activities designed to facilitate the practice of psychotherapy by psychiatrists.  Dr. Tuttle serves as a liaison between our committee and the American Psychiatric Association Psychotherapy Caucus, which is chaired by MPS member Dr. David Mintz and which is a group with aims similar to our committee on the national level.   The MPS Psychotherapy Committee has compiled a directory of institutions sponsoring courses on various types of psychotherapy (psychodynamic, CBT, DBT, etc.) which can be found on the MPS website under the Resources tab.

Our committee is diverse and eclectic, and we are proud to include members with varying theoretical orientations and types of practice.  We strongly believe that we have much to learn from each other, that we have more in common than we have differences, and that we can help each other and our profession much more by working together than we can by theoretical arguments and disagreements.  We are always open to including new members to the committee and hope that this is of interest to the Society as a whole.

Database of Advanced Training for Psychotherapy

Psychiatric News article about the MPS Psychotherapy CME conference on Contemporary Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Social Traumas held in February of 2022
‘Local Big Tent’ Initiative Highlights Psychotherapy for Social Trauma
MARGO P. GOLDMAN, M.D., MARGARET CHENG TUTTLE, M.D., M.S.
https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.pn.2022.09.9.8


PSYCHOTHERAPY Committee 

Charge:  Educate MPS members on the provision of a variety of psychotherapy and psychosocial treatment modalities in the practice of general psychiatry.

Role(s):  Primary: Education (major CME); Secondary: Advocacy

Mission Statement:  The MPS Psychotherapy Committee is a group of MPS member psychiatrists with a special interest in psychotherapy and psychosocial treatment. Our mission is to support and promote the role of psychotherapy provision in psychiatric practice. We advocate that psychotherapy continue as a major treatment modality used by psychiatrists including all types of psychotherapy, especially dynamic and cognitive-behavioral modalities be practiced by psychiatrists in psychiatric practice.

Committee work that supports our mission includes:  
1. Holding an annual MPS Psychotherapy conference,
2. Collecting information from and communicating in- formation to MPS Membership and organizations committed to psychotherapy, such as the APA Psychotherapy Caucus,
3. Supporting and educating psychiatry residents interested in psychotherapy by increasing resident recruitment to the committee,
4. Functioning as a work/study group on psychotherapy related issues,
5. Exploring avenues for political action and advocacy, both within and outside of our profession.