[The function of the independent day clinic in psychiatric treatment]

This report on the first ten years of the independent day hospital for psychiatric patients at Siegburg, West Germany, is based on the special nature and position of the hospital within the pattern of psychiatric hospital care as is being practised in W. Germany, where such hospitals are being run with provincial (Land)government supervision and management, and also in consideration of the fact that very little concrete experience has so far been collected on the independent hospitals. Geographical and social data are described and the changes that have taken place in the psychiatric patient care system in West Germany, as well as the changes in proportionate distribution of diagnoses of the patients, are considered. Differentiation of patient groups according to the development of their strategies for psychotic and borderline patients are worked out on this basis. Hence, this type of independent day hospital ceases to be a transitory affair and has evolved a therapeutic approach of its own.