[Authority in the psychiatric clinic].

Abstract

Although considerable progress was made as far as therapy and individual rights of the patients are concerned today the psychiatric hospital is more than ever the butt of open citicism. One of the reasons for that is the odium of involuntarity and authority surrounding it. It is based on the ill-fame and dubious reputation of the nineteenth century "asylum". The problem of authority concerns today's hospitals as much as ever. How the hospital is run depends naturally in the first place on the personality of it's director his views on authority, as much as on his understanding and ability to handle the intensive dynamic processes in the institution. Recognizing the boundaries of his actual knowledge and training, his "authoritative authority", makes him wisely limit his goals and activities. Power or "authoritarian authority" must be employed with restraint and moderation but without hesitancy when necessary. The clinic represents for the patient a total milieu. It's therapeutic effect relies a great deal on the regulatory influence of the daily routine based on the authority of the treatment team. Jones' ideas of the "Therapeutic Community" have only limited value for today's psychiatric hospital. Even less significant contributions have been made by the antipsychiatric movement or the Marxist-inspired reformers of the last decades. Only that is therapeutic which in the final analysis helps the patient to cope successfully with reality. Even today the use of involuntary measures-seclusion and medication etc. remain a necessary tool for the treatment of some patients. As every institution is always part of a public or private structure, it's authority is always bridled by these. Ethical clinical psychiatry requires an ethical political state, if it is not to become it's henchman. Even in democratic countries problems may arise around involuntary hospitalization, the care of psychiatrically ill criminals or the legalities around medicating the uncooperative psychotic patient. Attempts of intrusion into the independence and authority of the psychiatric hospital can also occur from the families of the patients, the admitting physicians or the mass media who developed a last a somewhat unsavory interest into the psychiatric institution. To deal with these challenges authoritative authority is mandatory as much as the understanding of the dynamics of human behavior. Special problems exist for the psychiatric service within a general hospital. As the most recent arrival from the banishment in the outskirts into the fold of medicine, it has to prove itself first.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)