Injustice and Embitterment: Crucial Stressors in Psychosomatic Patients.

Objective: "Disorders specifically associated with stress" are receiving increasing attention in clinical practice, research, and modern classification systems of mental disorders. This includes not only reactions to "extremely threatening or horrific events" as it is characteristic for "post-traumatic stress disorders" but also a variety of day-to-day experiences. Examples are experiences of injustice, humiliation, or breach of trust which can have dire psychological consequences such as feelings of embitterment, a strong and crippling emotion.

[Wisdom Attitudes and Coping In Life of Psychosomatic Patients].

Background: Wisdom is a capacity, which is needed in coping with difficult problems in life. It can be understood as a special type of problem solving skill. It is getting growing recognition in psychology in general, and in psychotherapy and clinical practice in particular.

The Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder Self-Rating Scale (PTED Scale).

The present study introduces the Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder Self-Rating Scale (PTED Scale), which asks for prolonged and disabling embitterment reactions in the aftermath of negative life events. The PTED Scale was administered to four independent samples of patients and normals. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were high.

[Adverse effects, side effects and medical malpractice in psychotherapy].

There is ample proof for the efficacy of psychotherapy but no systematic research on unwanted effects. Cases of malpractice represent a special problem as they always result from a therapist's inadequate behaviour. Furthermore, it is especially difficult in psychotherapy to distinguish between negative life events, unavoidable and undesirable developments of the disease, side effects of psychotherapy and positive treatment effects.