[Patient cooperation as a problem in inpatient psychosomatic rehabilitation]

Patients insured under the pension insurance scheme are subject to a statutory obligation to cooperate in their remedial treatment. In in-patient psychosomatic rehabilitation, a number of problems arise in view of this cooperation, as the patients are hampered in their potential for compliance with this demanded cooperation due to the specific nature of their psychosomatic condition, their personality structure as well as their previous disease history. Moreover, cooperation in psychosomatic rehabilitation involves special requirements in terms of active participation, inner openness and readiness for psychosocial change. In psychosomatic rehabilitation, the patient's cooperation cannot be assumed as a matter of course, rather, it is a task of the treatment process itself, which by appropriate therapeutic means seeks to achieve the patient's motivation and a working alliance, hence to create the prerequisites for cooperation.