A THERAPEUTIC GROUP WITH HUSBANDS AND WIVES OF POLIOMYELITIC PATIENTS

Abstract

A psychotherapeutic group for husbands and wives of bulbospinal poliomyelitic patients was organized under the assumption that while considerable individual work was done with patients by various staff members to help the patient accept his physical disability and to make a good physiological adjustment to that disability, relatively little was being done to help the husbands and wives of these patients to make a similar adjustment. A letter was sent to all husbands and wives of patients at the Ranch Los Amigos Respiratory Center for Poliomyelitis, Hondo, California, stating that there were psychological problems which were common to all patients having respiratory poliomyelitis, and that the eventual success of the patient's rehabilitation was directly or indirectly affected by the influence of the immediate family, especially that person's husband or wife. The letter further stated that husbands and wives of the patients are likewise faced with some problems which have specific implications for the patient's total recovery.