The Trauma Therapist Why Our Mental Health System Is Failing Us with Robert Smith, MD
Sep 22, 2025
Dr. Robert C. Smith, MD, a leader in evidence-based mental health care and author of *Has Medicine Lost Its Mind?*, discusses the critical failures in today's mental health system. He reveals how primary care, often responsible for mental health treatment, lacks proper training. Through patient-centered communication techniques, he emphasizes the importance of empathy and emotional connection in medicine. Dr. Smith also shares practical steps for reform and advocates for integrating psychology into healthcare to improve outcomes.
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Primary Care Carries Mental Health Burden
- Primary care handles most mental health care yet receives minimal training in it, creating systemic harm when clinicians are unprepared.
- Effective communication skills reduce recurrent visits and improve outcomes, but medicine rarely sustains that training.
Waking Up To Mental Health Gaps
- Dr. Robert C. Smith describes being unprepared for complex mental health needs as a primary care physician and feeling inadequate in caring for distressed patients.
- A turning point was a dying patient's diary criticizing his care, which pushed him to retrain in biopsychosocial medicine.
Practice Patient-Centered Interviewing
- Use patient-centered interviewing: let patients start, use silence, ask open prompts, and elicit emotion before switching to biomedical questions.
- Name, understand, respect, and support emotions briefly and repeatedly to build rapport and guide care efficiently.
