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To the Editor:
WESTERN PSYCHIATRIC LITERATURE assumes that psychiatry in the Socialist countries is basically organically oriented. A similar view pervades in Israel, and that view is reinforced by contacts with some of the new immigrants from those countries. Therefore, it came to me as a surprise to learn from the journal Psychoterapia1 that two symposia had been held on the topic of psychotherapy, the first in March, 1973 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and the second, in Komorov (near Warsaw) Poland, at the end of May, 1976. Representatives from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and the USSR participated.
All the participants stressed the importance of the role of psychotherapy in the treatment of various disturbances. Statistically, the need for psychotherapy was found in at least 25% of all patients, of whom it was thought 60% could be treated psychotherapeutically by general practitioners who would require special training. In addition to the need to develop methods for short-term psychotherapy, there was concern expressed with the formulation of criteria as to which patients qualified for such treatment. Of particular interest was the emphasis on the need to train medical students in the fields of psychology and psychopathology and the basic elements of psychotherapy. It was thought that general practitioners should be trained in diagnosing functional disturbances in which psychogenic factors play a primary role.