The integrated psychosomatic inpatient unit. A new approach to hospital medical care.

In contrast to the liaison psychiatry model, various types of psychosomatic inpatient units have been established successfully especially in Europe. Since Simmel's first attempt, they all use the unique possibility to create a special milieu of psychosomatic understanding and treatment of patients with all kinds of illnesses and somatic diseases. To fulfill this goal, the psychosomatic unit has to rely on three conditions: it must (1) be institution-independent as well as integrated within a large hospital system; (2) provide psychotherapeutic and somatic care of equally high standard, and (3) have the possibility to keep the patient sometimes for a longer duration than in other (e.g. internal) medical inpatient units. Principles, experiences and results of a psychosomatic unit with 60 beds integrated in a large municipal hospital are presented as an example for this promising approach to modern medicine.