[Psychosocial counseling in pediatric practice--report of experiences]

The authors report on the activities of a female consultant with psychosocial orientation acting within the framework of a practising lady paediatrician's medical activities. The paediatrician refers patients or families to the social sciences consultant who studied paedagogics, sociology and psychology and who is so to say part of the paediatric consultation work. This amounts to an approach to an integrated type of treatment. It is an attempt to extend the old therapeutic concept of "disease", which has been mainly directed at cure and at treating the human organism, via practical interaction between various fields of human activity. Paediatric medicine lends itself quite easily to such an approach on the basis of experience collected in the course of time. The authors give a systematised description of the consultant practice, showing the boundary-lines of competencies. A few practical cases are outlined. The authors consider this set-up as an attempt to effect structural improvements of general medical care.