ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how the progressive increase in acting out was clinically exploited by means of life-space interviewing. Though our focus will be primarily on the interview technique, we recognize that the total impact of our treatment plan was the result of the combined approach of all facets in our milieu. Individual psychotherapy, limit-setting, and special programing, as well as interviewing, contributed to the effect we obtained. The life-space interview is a therapeutic technique developed by Dr. Fritz Redl in which the patient is confronted with his symptomatic behavior when an issue arises that can be clinically exploited in terms either of long-range treatment goals or of providing immediate ego support and emotional first-aid. The chapter includes a discussion of precipitating factors in the series of acting-out incidents, strategy-planning in the handling of these incidents, and the life-space management of them.
