The notion and practice of psychotherapy in Polish psychiatry of the interwar period. Part 1.

Abstract

The paper explores the development of psychotherapy in Polish psychiatry in the interwar period from the perspective of Kurt Danziger's historical psychology. Firstly, the organizational and social context of the development of Polish psychiatric care in the interwar period and its impact on the development of psychotherapy is outlined. Then, the most influential in Poland, European psychotherapeutic developments in the interwar period are reconstructed. Finally, the views of psychiatric personnel of three psychiatric facilities proposing psychotherapy as one of the main means of treatment of mentally ill patients are introduced: Dziekanka Psychiatric Hospital, the Jewish Hospital in Warsaw and Psychiatry and Neuropathology Clinic of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Psychiatric personnel from Dziekanka Psychiatric Hospital, directed by Aleksander Piotrowski, understood psychotherapy broadly, as the influence of the environment on the patient's psyche. Psychiatrists of the Jewish Hospital in Warsaw, Adam Wizel, Gustaw Bychowski, Władysław Matecki, and Maurycy Bornsztajn developed psychoanalytically influenced psychotherapy of schizophrenia. Bychowski also advocated for the application of psychotherapy in such neglected groups of patients as children and the intellectually disabled. Jan Piltz and Eugeniusz Artwiński pursued psychotherapy in the treatment of war neuroses at the Psychiatry and Neuropathology Clinic of the Jagiellonian University.