The notion and practice of psychotherapy in Polish psychiatry of the interwar period. Part 2.

Abstract

The paper further explores the development of psychotherapy in Polish psychiatry in the interwar period. Jaroszyński attempted to sketch out the idea of "emotional psychotherapy". Stryjeński organized a counseling clinic for the mentally ill, using psychotherapy as one of the means of treatment. Bilikiewicz developed oneiroanalysis - a psychotherapeutic method of dream analysis based on modifications of psychoanalysis. Gottliebowa advocated for the use of psychoanalytically influenced psychotherapy in the gynaecologist practice. Markuszewicz considered psychoanalysis the only psychotherapeutic modality aimed at unearthing the real causes of mental illnesses. Henryk Higier proposed to consider psychoanalysis practically as a method of psychotherapy and saw its heterogeneity as its advantage. Critical views on psychoanalysis as a psychotherapeutic method were delivered by Wirszubski and Mikulski. In general, psychotherapy in Polish psychiatry of the interwar period was highly influenced by psychoanalysis. Moreover, the understanding and practice of psychotherapy in public psychiatric facilities differed from that in private practice. In public psychiatric facilities, it was used mainly to deal with psychoses, so it urged clinicians to modify the classic psychoanalytic approach. In private practice, psychiatrists were dealing mainly with cases of neuroses and therefore could apply standard psychoanalytic procedures. Methods of suggestion, persuasion and hypnosis, characteristic of nineteenth-century psychotherapy, were still in use in Polish psychiatry of the interwar period. The main obstacles to the development of Polish psychotherapy in the interwar period were antisemitic attitudes contributing to hostility towards psychoanalysis, as well as the biological orientation of the majority of the Polish psychiatric society.