[Mental disorders during intensive therapy]

The life conditions of patients in intensive care units, who are life-threatening somatically as well as psychically, correspond to the bodily and psychic (psychosomatic) extreme situations. Guarding, interdiction and anxiety determine psychosocially, deficiency of sleep, perception, orientation and communication apart from dispositional and actual somatic factors of a disease determine psychophysiologically the appearance of psychic disturbances during intensive care. The psychopathology of the beginning symptomatic psychoses and disturbance syndromes does not justify to take a new clinical picture, a specific intensive care syndrome as basis for them. Own results of inquiries of intensive care unit patients emphasize the great importance of an actual communicative contact between personnel and patients for a positive behaviour-influencing attitude of the patients in the intensive care milieu. The latter is decisively coined by the affective climate (working climate) of such institutions. The creation of more favorable environmental factors urgently needs psychologic advice, instruction and motivation of the personnel which is onesidedly trained for somatic emergency cases and technical perfection.