Psychodynamics and psychotherapy on an acute psychiatric ward. The story of an experimental unit

The treatment of severely disturbed patients is strengthened in an important way by listening closely to them and by attempting to understand their experience in the depth that is made possible by the use of psychoanalytic concepts. It follows that the practice of clinical psychiatry in the UK would be greatly improved by the introduction of a psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic perspective into the acute ward. This paper reviews the work done on a ward at the Maudsley Hospital in which this approach was the practice.