[Psychotherapy in psychiatry (and in medicine in general)]

The author subscribes to the view that psychotherapy has an inalienable place in the bio-psycho-social model in psychiatry, and in medicine in general; psychotherapy makes up part of the plurality of therapeutic methods which is adequate to the stratification of being. The plurality of psychotherapeutic methods is, in turn, adequate to the diversity of problems encountered in mental and psychosomatic disease. Emphasis is laid of the psychotherapeutic aspects of psychiatric examination and on the importance of very short interviews in clinical practice. Future developments as regards the integration of psychotherapy into medicine, and professionalism in the field of psychotherapy remain to be open questions.