[Psychiatric stress tolerance of acute and chronic surgical patients].

The surgical patient is subjected to psychological stress through fear of pain, operation, anesthesia and finally death. The exact definition of psychic stress and the patient's resistance to it is even more problematic than the definition of somatic stress. It is the doctor's task to alleviate the psychic stress of the patient, to instill confidence and to recognise the limits of his resistance and finally to take all this into consideration in planning his treatment.