Therapie der Verrücktheit

About this book

Translation of title: "Therapy of Craziness". The authors explain their cognitive psychotherapeutic treatment model for patients suffering from schizophrenia (to be used in psychiatric hospitals) , and describe their experiences during the first two years of its implementation in the Psychiatric Hospital at Haar (near Munich/Germany) from 1985 on. The group learning and training program in everyday skills, in the sense of a second, claryfying socialisation, is implemented by a qualified team for a group of 6-8 self-motivated patients in a full-day schedule, 5 days a week, for 2-3 months. In the practical part of the book, the various therapists introduce their special psychodynamic forms of treatment and the partly standardised materials, and introduce the reader to the clinical work: - Training of cognitive-instrumental basic skills - Therapy with music and movement - Painting - Psychodrama - Interaction and role training using fairy tales - Analytical-integrating single therapy - Partner- and family therapy. In the theoretical part, the authors explain the cognitive concept of their therapy model, deducting it from insights of developmental psychology and learning psychology as well as information psychology. Theorems by Piaget, Bandura, Kohlberg and Ausubel, and findings in empirical studies of schizophrenia as done by Shakow, Chapman, Cameron, Broen & Storms, are shown to confirm each other in a surprising way. The underlying theoretical concept of schizophrenic psychoses (based on a cybernetic theory of consciousness) has been published by the same authors in the book "Der begriffene Wahnsinn" (= "madness understood"), Campus, Frankfurt 1985 Both authors have degrees in Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology.