[Psychiatrist's attitude towards deep phlebitides of the leg]

Intervening at the end of the debate, the psychiatrist may be tempted to analyse the role played by the therapist's anxiety in the sometimes impassioned discussions on certain aspects of the preventive treatment of phlebothromboses. How can one remain indifferent to the risk of a pulmonary embolism ; these are sometimes mortal following such common happenings as childbirth, a simple surgical operation, or a sleep cure? In the domain of psychiatric diseases, the problem has been considered solved over the last ten years in that the technique of daily active and passive mobilization has been rigourously applied each time that treatment necessitated rest in bed : in effect, this technique alone has resulted in the complete disappearance of phlebothrombosis and its resulting embolic complications in both hospital services and clinics.