A Viennese doctor, who came to Britain just before the war, revealed today to psychiatrists and Health Ministry officials secreta of a new type hospital here which claims to mend broken hearts and cure anxiety neuroses, Reuters reported. This pioneer hospital, at Hampstead, London, has been incorporated into Britain’s national health service and its success will lead to the opening of similar hospitals elsewhere.
The doctor, Joshua Bierer, believes thousands of men and women are certified insane and sent to mental hospitals when two weeks of sympathetic treatment might make them normal citizens again. Social activities is one of the most important methods in Dr. Bierer’s treatment. Patients invite friends to social clubs. Often nobody knows who are the patients among those present.
Dr. Bierer has supplanted the verbal method of analysis and explanation of cause by a method of treatment by experience which is known as “situational treatment.” The special needs of each patient are subtly planned in a scheme to draw patients into social activities with each other. Often they are drawn naturally into doing things of which they believed themselves incapable. By these methods Dr. Bierer claims to have cured broken hearts caused by grief, nervous breakdowns resulting from domestic unhappiness, after effects of wartime experiences, anxiety, neurcaes and nervous disorders, shyness and blushing.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
