A COMPARISON OF PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PHYSICIANS AND SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS WHEN INSULIN IS COMBINED WITH PSYCHOTHERAPY AND WHEN PSYCHOTHERAPY IS USED ALONE

Psychotherapeutic relationships between 18 physicians and 109 schizophrenic patients were compared and contrasted when insulin was combined with psychotherapy and when psychotherapy was used alone, in relation to the outcome of treatment. The patients are divided into an A group (those whose physicians achieved an improvement rate of 70% or higher) and a B group (those whose physicians achieved an improvement rate of less than 70%). Our findings indicate that: 1. Insulin combined with psychotherapy is associated with a numerical increase in improvement only in the B patients (from 34% to 82%). A patients show no numerical gain (the rate remaining at 82%). 2. The higher numerical rate of improvement in the B group when insulin is combined with psychotherapy does not carry with it an increase in quality of improvement. Only one B patient reached the highest grade of improvement and in this case insulin was not used. Nor are qualitative gains associated with the use of insulin in the A patients. 3. The A phy...