Qualitative psychotherapy research in German-speaking countries

The authors present an overview of qualitative psychotherapy research in German-speaking countries. Special attention is paid to specific characteristics of methods, topics, and results, about which little is known in English-speaking countries. The authors describe historical and sociological developments in psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, clinical psychology, and the social sciences relevant to the advancement of qualitative psychotherapy research. They then focus on the development of methods of analyzing and generalizing data obtained from qualitative observations. Finally, they outline the most important topics and results of these methods: first interviews with patients/diagnostics, psychosomatic syndromes, patient's experience of the therapy process, interaction between patient and therapist, therapist's experience of the therapy process, and follow-up research.