[Psychotherapy in advanced age].

The ageing patient, especially in rehabilitation, faces an unknown and sometimes critical situation, in which he is as much in need of psychotherapy as he can benefit by it. Combinations of hypnoid techniques together with group interactions and analytically orientated verbal therapy have proved to be most suitable, bringing into action the somatotropic as well as the psychotropic effects of psychotherapy. Pleasure-orientation, variety and imagination as psychotherapeutic dimensions have to be integrated into rehabilitation, which otherwise would remain incomplete patchwork. We need a renaissance of general communicative culture in the first place, additionally specific verbal techniques for special (critical) situations, e.g. when talking to the incurably diseased, to his family, etc. Psychotherapeutic reasoning and acting must become part of the training and a permanent concomitant factor in all health professions. The same must hold good for public life, politics and society, if we strive for generally effective achievements for the ever-increasing number of elderly patients. It opens vast new fields of action for a new generation of psychotherapists who will be prepared to shed antiquated prejudiced stereotypes.