[Extension of psychotherapeutic activities within a psychiatric ward and the team's occupational background].

The importance of democratizing the therapeutic process in a psychiatric ward has been emphasized by Hägglund and Pylkkänen (1980). In spite of different levels of training extensive participating of the team members in performing individual psychotherapy promotes the unity of the therapeutic views of the staff. It prevents the formation of antitherapeutic staff groups. The subjective outcome of the treatment on a psychiatric open ward was examined using a questionnaire to patients. All those patients (N = 55) were selected who during a two years' research period stayed at least three weeks on the ward. Three subsamples were formed according to the therapist's occupation: a. patients of registered psychiatric nurses, b. patients of assistant psychiatric nurses and c. patients of residents, psychologists and social workers. There were no significant differences in the evaluations of the general treatment outcome between these three groups. Instead, the occupational background correlated with the patient's evaluation of the importance of the personal therapeutic relationship. The therapeutic relationship with a registered psychiatric nurse or with an assistant psychiatric nurse was significantly more often evaluated to be very or rather important at the end of the treatment than a relationship with a member of the group c. It was concluded that the goal to delegate the psychotherapeutic activities to the whole staff had been achieved quite well. The patients did not devaluate therapeutic relationships with staff members from a lower level of occupational training, on the contrary. The "non academic" personnel had established good contact with their patients. These observations support the views proposed by Hägglund and Pylkkänen (1980). Individual therapy should not be separated from the therapeutic community and the staff should not be divided into therapists and non-therapists.