Clinical inpatient therapy. Integration of psychotherapeutic and sociotherapeutic methods of treatment

Abstract

Different estimates of human nature are given by analytically oriented psychotherapy and sociotherapy. The former is attracted by the unconscious and irrational in man whereas the latter relying on ego-psychologists, is more optimistic and directed towards the conscious and rational in man. Psychotherapy is more oriented to the pathological, while sociotherapy to the healthy part of personality. In the framework of inpatient treatment, the application and integration of group sociotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic methods is found to be necessary. In the modern psychiatric department various forms of group therapy account for a basic form of treatment. The application of group therapy demands an individualized approach to both the patients and a chosen form of group therapy. The real group therapy should by no means be a kind of Procrustes' bedstead, i.e. the method obligatorily applied to all the patients in the department. In spite of all the advantages of group therapy, to create a fetish of work in groups has to be avoided. Not for itself but for patients should the group exist.