It’s worth noting that this is about chronic stress, not acute stress: the latter can be helpful in responding to emergencies, for example, or reaching peak performance.
The former is what exacerbates chronic disease, and precipitates doctor visits…including the patients I see, for obesity and weight management. I use lots of CBT techniques, btw, in lifestyle management of obesity.

My recall of the methods–I could be wrong, because the AMA URL won’t let me back in to look at the full text–showed 20 two hour meetings over a year, plus quarterly meetings, with two psychologists, and a volunteer coach for each person. Not very much time at all.

I don’t know the ROI numbers here, but many well done worksite wellness studies show between $2.50 and $8 return for every dollar invested.

But companies and insurers already have this data (though perhaps not for CBT). The harder question is: what else would make it worth their investment?

And great article.

You inspired me to put my thoughts to electronic paper: http://boards.medscape.com/.29fe2924/

Thanks,
Dr. Psychobabble

If this leads insurers to start to pay for this type of intervention, how much better than just pushing drugs at the problem? Also makes me wonder how well CBT would work as primary prevention for heart disease.

Meanwhile, I’m actually looking into finding a CBT program for myself. Those are life skills we could all use, CAD or not.

Thanks for a thoughtful, informing and , as usual, well-written post.