[Effectiveness of a patient-centered psychosomatic consultation service. Report of a catamnestic study]

After a short review of the latest scientific publications on psychosomatic consultation activity the results of an empirical study of the consultant service in the Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine at the Frankfurt University Medical Center are presented. Patient documentations and data from a retrospective investigation were analysed in order to trace the effectivity of psychosomatic consultation activities. To document the various dimensions of the consultative process and their interdependence different groups of patients were derived by means of cluster analysis. The results are in many aspects encouraging for psychosomatic consultative practice, as they show that even few consultations can have an important influence on the patient's further development.