[Distinction of emotions according to the speech melody and various problems of group psychotherapy]

The paper deals with the capability of the people to determine the emotional condition of other people from their acoustic-phonetic speech level. The test persons were asked to classify the speech samples of 23 patients with psychic affections who were in different emotional states into certain categories (rage, apathy, excitement, high spirits, etc.). It is pointed out that the ability to understand the emotional condition of a patient must absolutely exist in the psychotherapeutically working physician. This method seems to make an objectivation of important basic variables of the psychotherapeutic process possible.