WHICH FACTORS INFLUENCE THE DURATION OF I NPATIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY

The indication for differential duration of inpatient psychotherapy is a difficult question to answer, especially when the possible outcome- success of more severely disturbed patients (e.g. with borderline-pers onality disorder) is considered. Our own results showed no relevant co rrelation between the degree of patients' disturbance and treatment du ration, neither any relevant correlation between treatment duration an d therapists' evaluation of symptomatic or ego-structural improvement. The only marked effect on treatment duration was found for the patien ts' evaluation of their therapeutic relationship: the better they judg ed this relationship, the more their therapists tended to elongate inp atient psychotherapy. This finding supports a paradigm, which has been already well confirmed for outpatient psychotherapy: the specific imp ortance of the therapeutic relationship for the therapeutic process ev en within the scope of inpatient psychotherapy. Another finding of our study indicates that more severely disturbed patients probably need a modified setting of inpatient psychotherapy: favorably a focus orient ed intervall treatment with short duration periods and alternating foc us if necessary.