Die Geschichte der Psychosomatik in Österreich

After the rediscovery of psychoanalysis in Austria in the 1970s, psychosomatics began to slowly develop. The leading figure of this era was Erwin Ringel, the pioneer of suicide prevention and the first professor for psychosomatics at the University Hospital for Psychiatry in Vienna. The generally comprehensible mode of expression and lay publications made the new way of thinking popular. Erwin Ringel wanted psychosomatics to be the principle of every medical discipline and not only to install it as a new specialization. Although his approach was correct, he greatly obstructed the development of this discipline because for a long time there was no “place” in the canon of the special disciplines. In 1974 Hans Zimprich opened the first psychosomatic unit in the Karolinen-Kinderspital (Karolinen Children’s Hospital) in Vienna: enthusiastic young physicians became psychosomatically treating pediatricians. The team was supplemented by a psychoanalyst and a psychiatrist. We made the first steps and started by treating children suffering from enuresis nocturna, who at that time were being treated with imipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant (Imipramine [Tofranil®] can be cardiotoxic even at normal dosages; in 1980, it was recommended to use high dosages for the otherwise harmless disorder nocturnal enuresis) with a high toxicity and/or a mattress which raised the alarm when it became wet. That was dangerous and children were suffering to no avail. The psychodynamic way of thinking, which was new for Austria, became established in many fields of medicine and psychodynamics replaced classical psychiatry. Low threshold and to be in the midst of classical pediatrics—that was the dream.