The Text Base Management System: Information Science Applied in the Field of Psychotherapy

Abstract

The previous chapters have dealt with psychotherapeutic research employing language data and thus with the general scope of application of linguistic data processing and with the questions associated with it. This chapter will discuss the details of several aspects that were important for the actual establishment of the TBS. This chapter contributes to applied information science, demonstrating which elements from the current state of research have been employed in practical work at the TBS. However, there have also been some rather severe limitations, since hardly any software tools were available with the computer at the University Computer Center in Ulm (a TR440 will be in use until probably mid-1985). Because, on the other hand, the planned change in computers was originally scheduled for 1982, the few tools which were available were not given serious consideration with regard to the establishment of the TBS because they are highly machine dependent. Due to the lack of hard- and software capacity, a number of problems were solved “only” on paper or were solved in a preliminary way, in the sense of “rapid prototyping” (KEUTGEN 1982), by using the microcomputer equipment (Telecomp 5200 and 5600) at our disposal, in order to make the system available to users.