[Therapeutic factors of inpatient psychotherapy--the patients' view]

Inpatient psychotherapy as a complex treatment program coordinates a multitude of specific, possibly therapeutic helpful components. At least in departments of about 20 or more beds the available therapeutic components are composed or dosed in a different kind for certain groups of patients (indication). In the Psychosomatic Clinic with a ward of 22 beds patients with certain psychoneurotic symptoms, bodily dysfunction or psychosomatic illnesses take part in different inpatient psychotherapy programs for 3 months. This very intensive treatment phase is regularly followed by an outpatient psychoanalytic oriented individual or group-psychotherapy for 1 or more years. For the inpatient treatment phase we differentiate 18 possibly therapeutic helpful factors. Preparing systematic studies we asked the patients at the end of their inpatient treatment phase to judge: to what extent the 18 single factors were helpful. Furthermore a personality questionnaire (Giessen-Test) and a checklist of complaints (Giessen Checklist of Complaints) were routinely filled out by the patients pre and post their inpatient time. From this data we derive independent success-scores which enables us to investigate the association between the subjective assessment of the helpfulness of certain therapeutic factors and somewhat independent criterions. The given data of n = 291 patients allow a empirically based discussion of the question: "What relevance do certain components of inpatient psychotherapy alone or together with other components have for certain groups of patients or specific settings?