Controlled Study of Psychiatric Outpatient Treatment

Abstract

<h3>Introduction</h3> American psychiatry is confronted with a continuing problem of trying to meet the need for psychiatric services, particularly for those who seek outpatient care. Most clinics have waiting lists and a common concern of clinic directors is how to provide treatment that is more economical of staff time. The introduction of "tranquilizers" in the mid-1950's was followed by a large number of reports of highly successful treatment with these drugs of a wide variety of emotional disorders. There seemed to be hope, if such reports were reliable, that at last an economical treatment was available. Medical articles and drug company advertising claimed that phobias, obsessive-compulsive neuroses, behavior disorders, anxiety states, etc, which had resisted all other forms of treatment, had finally been cured with one or another drug. If there were any basis in reality for these seemingly extravagant claims, we would be obliged to