Possibilities of applying complex art therapy in psychiatric hospital

Abstract

Introduction Mentally disabled people have been ignored by society, experienced different restrictions and have been more or less isolated from society since a long time ago. There were many changes in health system in Lithuania during the Soviet period. Expressive Psychotherapy methods are used in many different countries around the world in psychiatric hospitals and clinics.Expressive Psychotherapy methods application - is a symbiosis of several fields of art, as art and music, music and dance, music and psychodrama. Aim To evaluate the potential cases for application of expressive psychotherapy on schizophrenic adolescents. Methods The research was made in Psychiatric hospital where has been studied 210patientswith schizophrenia. There were two patients groups with schizophrenia: a control group of 110 patients, and exploratory - 100 patients. The control group patients had the opportunity to choose of all the arts therapy sessions three times a week for 1 hour. The exploratory group patients had expressive psychotherapy sessions five times a week for 3 hours. Research lasted 24 weeks. Results Subjective evaluation of well-being after expressive psychotherapy on schizophrenic adolescents were significantly improved in the group of exploratory patients (p<0,05). The analysis of expressive psychotherapy methods on schizophrenic patients with fine motor skills, have found that before the study between groups fine motor tests results did not differ significantly (p>0.05). After the application of expressive psychotherapy method fine motor skills in the control group and the experimental group schizophrenic patients differed significantly (p<0,05).