Introduction of intensive milieu therapy in a traditional psychiatric unit

In spite of a growing interest in clinical psychiatry to experiment with new treatment programs, not least in the field of milieu-therapy, the effect of these programs on the behavior of patients and staff are rarely subjected to systematic evaluation. So the progress in the field is hampered by a lack of clearly defined behavioral data which lends itself to critical analysis, and generally speaking is based on rather loose clinical impressions which make scientific verification difficult the present describes an admittedly crude attempt at systematic evaluation of what happened to staff's and patients' behavior when a relatively intensive milieu-therapy program was introduced in a traditional psychiatric unit, using relatively simple but clearly defined parameters of change in behavior over time. Certain hypotheses about what would happen in terms of group behavior if the new program worked according to its intentions were tested, and generally speaking the conclusion was that the program developed successfully as far as this could be measured by the selected parameters. Data about the patients' evaluation of the effect of the treatment program on themselves, and how this relates to attitudes towards own mental disorders and expectation towards psychiatric treatment at admission to the clinic, as well as social background and group behavior, is analysed, and wil be published in a subsequent paper. So the present paper should be considered as a preliminary report, mainly focusing on certain methodological aspects.