Abstract
Research has shown that patients are treated unequally by providers of mental health services. This study is designed to investigate why this is so. Providers who treat advantaged, as opposed to disadvantaged, patients are more likely to be rewarded by their colleagues. Thus, core features of the occupational reward system constrain psychotherapists to be less than enthusiastic about serving disadvantaged patients. This line of reasoning is tested on a nationwide sample of psychotherapists (psychologists) through vignettes describing a therapist and randomly varying the characteristics of his patients. The results show that a therapist is evaluated more positively if treating advantaged patients, thereby supporting the premise that inequities in the delivery of mental health services are directly related to the reward structure in which mental health professionals conduct their activities.
Keywords
DisadvantagedMental healthPremisePsychologyService delivery frameworkMental health serviceDelivery systemPsychotherapistClinical psychologyService (business)Medicine
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Publication Info
- Year
- 1983
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 61-61
- Citations
- 9
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
Bruce G. Link
(1983).
Reward System of Psychotherapy: Implications for Inequities in Service Delivery.
Journal of Health and Social Behavior
, 24
(1)
, 61-61.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2136303
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.2307/2136303