The current status of consultation/liaison (CL) work in Germany is discussed. It is historically determined by a double split between East and West and between psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine. Since the establishment of university departments of psychosomatic medicine in the early seventies, psychiatric and psychosomatic CL services have come to differ in several aspects: the relative importance of CL work in clinical practice and research, the models of cooperation preferred, the intensity of cooperation, the methods of intervention, the relative number of patients seen, and the type of their disorders and complaints. The paper discusses problem areas of CL service delivery and reflects on the rationale for cooperation and its effects and outcome. Further research is recommended on the epidemiology of psychosomatic disorders proper, on problems of coping and psychosocial sequelae of somatic illness, and on the possibility of screening and early detection of problem patients in the general hospital population. Research is also needed on the consultation process and on the personal and institutional requirements of sucessful cooperation.
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Herzog et al. (1991) studied this question.
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