ANGST OG TERAPI

Abstract

Støtteterapi, angstprovoserende terapi og terapeutiske holdninger hos personalei på en avdeling ved et norsk psykiatrisk sykehus blir beskrevet. Samspillet mellom pasienter og terapeuter analyseres i lys av angstbegrepet.

SUMMARY

A department in a Norwegian mental hospital is described in terms of supportive and anxiety-provoking therapy. In accordance with previous findings (Løchen, 1976) staff members are seen to avoid anxieties by rationalizing their own barely perceived feelings and attitudes into allegedly rational principles for therapeutic behavior. The author claims that hospitals which aim toward therapie rather than sedative goals, must give staff members regular opportunities for working through their own hidden anxieties and attitudes.

The “professional nearness” is a therapeutic attitude which serves to reduce staff anxieties. Using content-analysis of spoken language as a method of assessing anxiety in individuals, it is shown that staff-anxiety is higher than patient-anxiety at the community-meeting (fellesmøte), and that the opposite is true at the group-session (gruppemøte). This result is understood in the light of social structure as an anxiety-reducing agent.