title: Interminable treatment in patients who appear healthy.
abstract: Treatment interminability among nonpsychotic psychiatric patients is a subject not well understood. Those who treat such patients are often nagged by a feeling that they are somehow failing, especially if the patient has a history of personal achievement. The authors describe three such patients and propose that they exemplify a type of pseudomaturation. common features in the accounts of their childhood suggest a failure in the separation-individuation phase of development. The authors theorize that this failure first contributed to the development of psychiatric symptoms during adulthood and then to interminability in treatment.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003631:Day Care, Medical / Q000523:psychology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D007326:Institutionalization; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009769:Object Attachment; D010259:Paranoid Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D010553:Personality Development; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D012649:Self Concept; D012917:Social Adjustment