[Psychotherapy with elderly patients. Experiences from a psychiatric psychotherapeutic consultation service]

Experiences with psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy with the elderly have been made in a psychiatric consultation service at a general hospital. The life-long importance of psychodynamically relevant conflicts is illustrated by two case examples of psychosomatic patients with asthma and functional symptoms of the gastrointestinal tract. The experiences with short-time psychotherapies described here are encouraging and confirm results of other groups demonstrating the efficiency of psychotherapeutic interventions with the elderly. Special problems of psychotherapy with older patients in a psychiatric consultation service and implications for the routine medical treatment of general-hospital patients are discussed.