The relationship between psychotherapist and prescribing psychiatrist. Some considerations.

We have reviewed the vagaries and vicissitudes of an increasingly common arrangement in contemporary mental health treatment, namely, the collaboration between psychotherapist and prescribing psychiatrist in the treatment of the patient who requires both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Such a collaboration raises practical, legal, transference, counter-transference, economic, and training issues. It is our hope that this review of these issues will lead to further discussion as, in our experience, they have until now received scant attention in the mental health literature, in the day-to-day work of practitioners, and in supervision and training. We believe that successful collaboration can be achieved when sufficient awareness and planning are present at the outset.