Psychotherapy in psychiatry

The author examines from various standpoints the topic of abolishing the splitting between biological and psychological phenomena in psychiatry: Freud's hope and question that in future psychological phenomena might prove to be definitely biophysiological, led him to the new infant research findings and their insights into the development of perception as well as to the physiological findings of brain research including the techniques of PET and SPECT. The concept of ''representation'' to him becomes a model for explaining the changes in the patient's personality effected by the therapeutic relationship between physician and patient. This concept means: perceiving and experiencing the environment and other persons can be realized ana responded to from birth on in different ways. In addition the author refers to new research work showing that psychotherapy leads to the same physiological changes as psychopharmacological treatments.