Hubert Speidel

Problems in Interaction between Patients Undergoing Long-Term Hemodialysis and Their Partners

186 patients undergoing hemodialysis and their partners were examined with a personality inventory (Giessen test) and a questionnaire which was specially developed for this purpose. The instrument was used to measure the social interaction between patient and partner. The Giessen test was applied in four versions: self-description, description by the partner, referring to the present, referring to the past. One of the main interests of the analyses was in finding dependencies of the variables upon the types of hemodialysis setting (unit, private unit, and at home). Various correlations were found.

Ernst August Dölle’s Views on German Psychosomatics

The significance of Ernst August Dolle’s contribution to the growth of German psychology, especially during the 20s and 30s, has already been widely appreciated. Oddly enough, howev

Psychische Probleme von Hämodialysepatienten und ihren Partnern

Die Niere ist ein lebensnotwendiges Organ, das der Ausscheidung der im Stoffwechsel entstehenden Schlackensubstanzen (z.B. Harnstoff, Kreatinin) sowie korperfremder Substanzen (z.B. Medikamente) der Regelung des Wasserhaushaltes sowie des Saure-BlasenGleichgewichts dient. Weiterhin beeinflust die Niere den Blutdruck und die Blutbildung.

Some Remarks about the College and Its Future

Some Remarks about the College and Its Future We are now 13 years old. Proverbally, we have reached our manhood and womanhood. But more likely we have only been thrown into the maelstrom of adolescence. This is our 7th congress and it seems we are in an appropriate identity crisis – who we are, where do we wish to go? We have lost our founding father. We have a membership of 400. We have wandered from Kyoto to Jerusalem. Our attendance has been as high as 1,300 and as low as the current conference. It gives us an opportunity to ask if smaller more focussed congresses are better? Will they get us beyond the platitudes and reiterations of the past toward more mature formulations of integration and synthesis? Perhaps we are establishing an identity. However, there are whole continents in which our presence and our effect is either limited or nonexistent. There is a second and a third world that we have failed to align. We have prestigious vice presidents and councillors, as well as a body of delegates whose use the Administration has tapped limitedly. We are a body without a head in the sense that we have failed in our efforts to establish a journal. The quality of our meetings has been increasingly good, as I am confident this congress will demonstrate. However, the work in their formation has been that of a few. We need to inquire of ourselves of the forwardness of our theories and of the originality of our research. How often do we confuse statistical correlations ofendless variables as proof and substantiation, independent of critical reasoning? Future administrations will need to develop communicative and directive skills in order to tap its officers, as well as its younger members at large to do the job that they have been expected to do. I believe that under the auspices of the Program Committee, with frequent communication, the officers and commitee chairpersons should be responsible for the organization of symposia in the area they share, drawing on their knowledge of the new and seminal work that is under investigation, often outside of our purview. The delegation and tendering of this responsibility will insure the quality ouf our presentations and discussions, allowing our congresses to be more scientific, more communicative, and more conceptual. Several of us believe that our congresses should return to the campus where there is a natural environment for the membership to interact and participate as scholars in a setting conducive for the intimacy of scholarship outside of, as well as within, our more formal sessions. Would this not be a more facile environment in which to bring in our students and associates from other disciplines? Within these settings, there Some Remarks about the College and Its Future 11

Opening Remarks to the 7th World Congress of the International College of Psychosomatic Medicine

Opening Remarks to the 7th World Congress of the International College of Psychosomatic Medicine Standing here, opening our 7th World Congress I am at the same time breaking a very solemn promise – practically an oath -given or sworn 24 years ago. Then – in the spring of 1959 – having been at the Hamburg Clinic for only a year, I watched Jores and Freyberger hosting and organizing the European Congress of Psychosomatic Medicine. What I perceived from my lowly position were hurt vanities of speakers or chairpersons for not having been attributed an adequate position, fights for more speaking time, and delays in the delivery of manuscripts. In my eyes – and this made the whole process simply agonizing – all these troubles seemed fully uncompensated by clear success experiences. As a consequence I gave myself the solemn promise to do anything and everything humanly possible to evade ever hosting an international congress. Having broken my oath with qualms and apprehensions, I can tell you now that the latter were completely unfounded. However, this may be a stroke of luck due to two external but mutually interacting factors. One is the cooperative dedication and zeal of the whole staff of our Psychosomatic Department. It is a very small team, but we managed with only two outside cooperations: Bernd Dahme from the Department of Medical Psychology, and – and this is the second factorthe expert help of the professionals of the Congress Center Hamburg. I am thanking them all for their work and for their dedication. Their cooperation achieved that computer outprints of plenary and symposium speakers were correct, the layout of programs attained expectations, the budget was updated regularly, and the timetable was kept throughout. Thus we have already had our success experiences and our narcissistic support, and therefore we can invite you to feel free of moral obligations and just give vent to your feelings. However, if we are quite honest, we would prefer you to enjoy the V∏th ICPM World Congress and we believe there is an objective albeit predictive reason for this. You certainly never have heard of the Meyer/Freyberger PPWC theorem, because we have only discovered it – independently but convergently – ad hoc of this world congress. PPWC stands for Progressive Pauperization of World Congresses. Its mechanism is an exceedingly simple and easy to understand economic process, one could call it the leverage depression acceleration for certain taxo-nomic subgroups of society (here scientists Opening Remarks 9

Team Supervision in a Dialysis Unit as an Alternative to Psychotherapy with Dialysis Patients

The psychological and psychosocial situation of dialysis patients as a result of their chronic renal failure and dialysis treatment has been described in detail (Czaczkes & De-Nour, 1978; Speidel et al., 1978; Levy, 1981). There is general agreement that the period directly before commencement of the dialysis as well as the period following the resolution of somatic difficulties at the beginning of the dialysis treatment are times of deep psychological crisis. Psychological help is needed to assist the dialysis patient in overcoming these crises.