title: Are psychiatric Crisis Assessment and Treatment team clinicians on the psychotherapy front line?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  There is limited data on the psychological interventions used by Crisis Assessment and Treatment (CAT) team clinicians, even though practice guidelines stipulate part of their role to be the provision of counselling. This study aimed to catalogue and categorise the range of psychotherapeutic interventions utilised by clinicians of a CAT team operating within a metropolitan area.
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-report, episode of care data was collected regarding clinicians' views of the type of psychotherapeutic intervention they employed and details of what they discussed with patients, and location and duration of interventions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-two care episodes were catalogued. On average, clinicians spent 74% of their total contact time with patients engaged in psychological interventions. A wide range of strategies, drawn from a broad theoretical base, was used. Aside from general approaches aiding engagement, interventions could be classified into the following categories: meta-strategy ('treatment about the treatment'), 'critical', 'practical', specific psychotherapeutic (cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and others), and supportive.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Clinicians saw themselves as spending the majority of patient contact time engaged in psychological interventions drawn from a broad theoretical base. Observational studies of what clinicians actually do and empirical investigation of the efficacy thereof may have implications for clinician training and supervision.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia. k.monshat@unimelb.edu.au
authors.forename: Kaveh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Monshat
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bosanac
authors.forename: Gail
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Khorsen
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gaynor
authors.forename: Silvana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nittoli
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Castle
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D003419:Crisis Intervention / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019037:Urban Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data