[Interpersonal relations in groups of mentally ill and mentally healthy children]

Using the sociometric method supplemented by systematic observations, the authors studied the interpersonal relations in children's departments of mental and therapeutic hospitals. The subjective structures of choices were compared with the objectively forming interrelations. Mental patients showed a greater rigidity of these structures which remained unaltered even with the arrival of newcomers, which is explained by a relatively minor role played by such a factor as socialization. The nosological characteristics influenced the sociometric choices only indirectly, with the main structural factors being sex and age. The position of each patient in this structure was altered in parallel with the change in his or her mental status. Unlike the therapeutic department, characteristic of mentally ill patients was the limitation of choices by sex; they also differed by the fact that girls had two types of leaders.