[Difficulties and possibilities of the integration of psychosomatic obstetric knowledge in labor and lying-in wards]

Results of research into early mother-child relations provoked by developments in depth psychology and pediatrics have had an extremely lasting influence on psychosomatic obstetrics. Their intensification depends on the patient's own, often subconscious, motivation, which is the decisive influence in the success of the therapy. In an investigation involving nurses engaged in obstetrical duties (n = 237) the question as to the extent in which the nurses' individual psychological characteristics and social attitudes differed from those of the "average population" and to what extent ward sisters, midwives and children's nurses differed in their psychic make-up was examined. The health of an individual depends on a healthy "relationship", on "his or her real, individual and social capacity as well as on the idealistic standards which the individual strives to live up to." Both with regard to their social position and the appreciation they receive, the nurses considered that they were not appreciated as much as they would like to have been. Their inhibited aggression exercises an influence on their basic mood which, in individual sub-groups, is tinged with depression. Vocational further-training sessions in their intellectualised form are, rather, a form of defence instead of a potential forum for discussing difficulties.