[Evaluation of the "Psychosomatic Group Therapy" (PSG)]

The changes in the public health system in Germany have led to an increasing number of in-house patients in clinics for psychotherapy, whose attitudes towards their disorders can be described as medically orientated and who are less motivated towards psychotherapy. To integrate these patients with low motivation or little experience and knowledge of behavior therapy, therapists of the Fachklinik Bad Dürkheim developed a special program for group therapy ("Psychosomatic Group Therapy", PSG). The goals of this program, which consists of 10 sessions, are: 1. Teaching the basics of psychosomatic medicine and behavioral therapy, 2. imparting a bio-psycho-social model of psychosomatic disorders, and 3. initiating and supporting basic capabilities of self management, thereby increasing the motivation for behavior therapy and reducing the symptoms of the patients. This empirical study follows a one-group pre-post design. The results show several positive outcomes of the program: In the eyes of the patients, the sessions themselves and the exercises between the sessions ("homework") are didactically excellent and personally relevant. The patients' knowledge about and their attitudes towards psychosomatics change in a positive direction. Furthermore, the motivation for psychotherapy increases and general improvements in physical and psychological symptoms can be shown. However, these changes in motivation do not correlate with changes in knowledge of and attitudes towards psychotherapy. The reasons for these results are critically discussed.