Psychotherapeutic interventions in alexithymic patients. With special regard to ulcerative colitis and Crohn patients

Abstract

Starting from the psychosomatic patients in clinico-medical wards and the inherent two primary alexithymic features "highly limited introspective capacity' and "very low motivation concerning dynamic psychotherapy', which we proved empirically, we describe the therapist's attitude and the three steps of supportive psychotherapy which initially represent the most indicated procedure in this patient group. In Hannover, this supportive psychotherapeutic procedure is applied by student auxiliary therapists. On the basis of our empirical findings, the effectivity of supportive psychotherapy, accomplished by students, in the alexithymic psychosomatic clinico-medical inpatients could be clearly demonstrated. Furthermore, we comment on some previous psychotherapeutic findings with regard to Crohn patients. Starting from our pretreatment and our follow-up measurements, we were able to prove that patients who were treated by both supportive psychotherapy and psychoanalytically orientated inpatient ward psychotherapy, showed remarkable improvements at all levels of the measurement techniques. Finally, we outline some clinico-psychosomatic aspects with regard to secondary alexithymia.