PSYCHOANALYTICAL INPATIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY - A FORM OF TREATMENT IN ITSOWN RIGHT - STUDY ON OUTCOMES WITH FORMER PATIENTS AFTER 10 YEARS

For psychoanalytical inpatient psychotherapy, as compared to an outpat ient setting, three specific curative factors are relevant: the therap eutic relationship, relations to fellow patients and the relationship to the framework of the clinical institution, The full effect of hospi tal treatment does not develop until after discharge, characteristical ly in a process of successive steps: after a brief crisis of detachmen t patients, relieved and stabilized by their hospitalziation, try at f irst to compromise between their old and their newly acquired conflict solutions. After a brief or longer span of time they fail in this, wh ich leads to a post-therapeutic crisis. During this crisis the curativ e effect of the conflict-centered therapy may emerge insofar as patien ts are now able to rearrange their conditions of life according to the insight and experiences they have gained during the inpatient psychot herapy. By comparing different courses of subsequent developments of p atients we found, that the specific curative factors in clinical psych otherapy and the specific phases of working-through of conflict after discharge are inter-related. Inpatient psychotherapy thus emerges as a form of psychotherapy in its own right. Readmission to hospital (''In ter-valltherapie'') or a combination of in-patient and out-patient psy chotherapy is only necessary for a limited range of cases; these indic ations are spezified.