PD Dr. med. Reinhard Lindner

Duration: 1 February 2007 to 31 January 2011
Center: Zentrum Albertinen-Haus, Zentrum für Geriatrie und Gerontologie Hamburg, Germany

PD Dr. Reinhard Lindner studied medicine at the Universities of Hamburg and Auckland, New Zealand. He has specialist training in psychiatry (incl. gerontopsychiatry), neurology and psychosomatic medicine, and an additional title in psychotherapy. He is a lecturer, supervisor and teaching therapist at the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für integrative Psychoanalyse, Psychotherapie und Psychosomatik in Hamburg (APH e.V./ DGPT). Since 1994, he has been a research associate at the Center for Therapy and Studies of Suicidal Behavior at Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf. He gained his doctorate in psychiatry and psychotherapy at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hamburg in 2005 with a systematic qualitative study of suicidality in men. Current research project: Suicidal tendencies in elderly people.

Publications: R. Lindner, G. Fiedler, A. Altenhöfer, P. Götze, C. Happach (2006) Psychodynamic ideal types of elderly suicidal persons based on counter transference, Journal of Social Work Practice 20: 347-365.

R. Lindner (2006). Suizidale Männer in der psychoanalytisch orientierten Psychotherapie. Eine systematische qualitative Untersuchung. Psychosozial-Verlag, Gießen.

Research
Although up to one third of all geriatric patients suffer from psychiatric illness and/or psychosomatic syndrome, barely any psychosomatic or psychotherapeutic services exist for this group of patients. Moreover, elderly patients, including elderly suicidal patients, rarely use psychotherapeutic institutions. Suicidality is, as it were, a prime example of the problem, since (1) suicidality is a serious psychiatric problem in this age group, and (2) suicidality is closely associated with physical illnesses and limitations. Yet elderly patients rarely seek professional help.

The research project is based on the results of an earlier study, in which a structured interview about the inner world and psychosocial situation of elderly suicidal patients was developed and evaluated. The aim of the current research is to determine the intrapsychic, psychosocial and physical factors in suicidal multimorbid geriatric inpatients and use these data to make special recommendations on the content and structure of treatment strategies for this patient group.

The structured interview and other instruments will be used with 40 multimorbid geriatric patients, 20 of whom are suicidal and 20 non-suicidal. The results will be compared with those of a group of elderly (60+) people without severe physical illnesses.