The place of occupational therapy in the management of the functional psychoses

Summary

In the first case, resocialization of a patient, who was at first considered a poor therapeutic risk, followed removal from the stress-producing situation and the application of a therapeutic program which, satisfied his need for friendly support and permitted the utilization of an almost isolated interest (the development of which later formed the basis of his avocational and social adjustment). In such an instance the importance of focussing our energies, even upon the apparently fixed cases which come under our care, was well brought out.

In the other patients described, opportunities were provided for particular types of occupation, recreation and social environment which filled, in a constructive way, these individuals' special needs, and aided also, through the associations formed, the progress of psychotherapy.

One feels that the application of this more specific type of therapy could, with much profit, be enlarged, but its time consuming nature seems to entail the services of more therapists than are usually available in the psychiatric hospital. As our strength in this direction increases, proportionate benefit to the patient will result.

The efforts to reintegrate the patient, which have been described, seem therefore to illustrate the value of a close coordination and periodic revaluation of the relationship of the therapeutic agencies and it sometimes happens that out of such attempts at integration of our own resources rather than from sudden expansions in our methods, new syntheses for therapy arise.