ABSTRACT
The type of therapy I shall be discussing in this book takes place at the junction where psychoanalysis and the hospital meet. My aim is to show how theories about the genesis of psychic illness become analytic practice in the clinical setting. The demands of the inpatient environment have challenged analysts to revise their concepts and design new models. Theory is driven by need, and practice generated by theory, in a process of reciprocal influence. As ideas are tested, untrodden avenues are opened up and theoretical underpinning is given to experimental techniques. I shall be taking the reader through this process as it has unfolded in German hospitals committed to psychosomatic medicine and the provision of inpatient psychotherapy. In so doing, I hope to contribute to general thinking on the place of psychoanalytic theory and practice in hospitals everywhere.
