Psychiatric nurse as therapist.

Under supervision five nurse-therapists have treated phobic patients as successfully as have psychiatrists and psychologists using similar psychological treatments in comparable psychiatric populations. Nurses have also had good results in other neurotic disorders. Intensive training is required. Nurse-therapists find their work rewarding, but the present Salmon gradings make no provision for their advancement should they retain their clinical function. Results suggest that the use of selected psychiatric nurses as skilled therapists can ease the current critical shortage of treatment personnel in psychiatry.