Phantasy Therapy in psychiatry:: Rediscovering reality in phantasy

Phantasy Therapy is an interdisciplinary depth-psychologically oriented group therapy form with focus on the treatment of psychoses in acute and remission phases. A different theme is presented to the patients every week on two consecutive days (90 min per session), coherently, via various sensory channels. On the first day, the theme is concretely and operationally introduced by means of an object, transformed into movement in the broadest sense of the word, and experienced directly with the body. The first session ends with a story, usually a fairy tale or parable, so that the body experiences can be further realized symbolically at the cognitive-emotional level. The second session treats the same theme via repetition of the chosen story with the deeper transformation of symbols into color and form. The first day is jointly led by a psychotherapist and a movement/dance therapist, the second day by a psychotherapist and an art therapist. Our approach understands therapy as a somatesthetic experience- and synesthetic expression-oriented encounter with the patient via the therapist's empathic imaginative identification with the patient by means of a progressively orchestrated, positivizing, cognitive-emotional, theme-centered rapport. In this connection six therapeutic elements are of importance: theme, object, movement, fairy tale, artwork, symbol. Phantasy Therapy offers the patient creative freedom in a humorous and playful way within a certain therapeutic security (Amae principle) and contradicts several classical prejudices concerning the treatment of psychotic patients.