Austen Riggs Center

This year, at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting, I heard a new catchphrase: "practicing at the top of your license." While I had heard this phrase a few times before, it seemed to be everywhere this year. The context in which this phrase tended to be uttered was when psychiatrists were describing the position that their employers took, when those psychiatrists wanted to provide some form of psychosocial treatment in addition to (or as an alternative to) the model of "15-minute med checks." The implication seemed to be, "you are medically trained, while others are not, so your energies should be devoted exclusively to providing medicine."