[Inpatient preliminary examination. A model for the improvement of clinical psychotherapy].

Hospitalization of patients for four days in order to carry out a psychodiagnostic examination is a model which, so far, has not been practised anywhere else in Germany. Experience in the Wittgenstein hospital during more than six years has shown that such a preliminary examination is able to achieve more than solving the problem of a possible indication for inpatient psychotherapy. The four-day sojourn in the hospital allows, moreover, a motivation of the patient, who often enough is rather ill prepared, toward future treatment, causing discontinuation of treatment to be rare. Additionally, the preliminary examination bridges the gap of the waiting period of several month which is common with psychotherapeutic institutions nowadays before inpatient treatment can begin, and therefore acts therapeutically in the sense that by means of the diagnosis the patients attention is already focussed upon the psychic origin of his complaint. By the drawing-up of an appropriate therapeutic plan at the end of the preliminary examination and by his assignment to a suitable ward the patient is supplied with a comprehensible directive with regard to his future therapy, and he is able to on the spot acquaint himself with the staff and with the premises of the institution.