Therapeutic Writing at the Charite Everyday Practice and Subjectification in Group Psychotherapy, 1974-1978

This article examines a scarcely known element of psychotherapeutic everyday life in the Honecker era: therapeutic writing. Based on self-testimonies in historical medical re-cords, it examines how patients constituted themselves as therapeutic subjects through writing. Using the example of dynamic group psychotherapy at the Charite in the 1970s, it shows how patients formed a selective biography and a therapeutic view of the self. A "therapeutization of the self" can be observed here, although this has so far been considered a (neo)liberal phenom-enon. Adapting techniques of the self can be related to the international integration of the GDR and the growing individualism.