TITLE:
The Doctor-Patient Relationship and Self-Stigma
AUTHORS:
Gavril Cornuțiu
KEYWORDS:
Doctor; Patient; Therapeutic Relationship System; Stigma; Therapeutic Effect
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.4 No.6,
June
10,
2013
ABSTRACT: The text is an analysis of the relational complex in a therapeutic space. Analysis started from the need to perform a medical act depending also on understanding these aspects. In the therapeutic process, diagnosis and treatment in their classical sense are just two of the aspects of a relational type interpersonal reality, which is much more complex. In fact, doctor-patient relationship is part of a relational system including the patient, his family, the physician and society. The four factors interact with each other, and the final result, the result that has a therapeutic effect on the patient, is a synthesis of all these interactions. Stigma is a pathological psychological product affecting all relations. Stigma is usually part of the collective mind, but also part of individual psychology. When stigma affects a patient’s mind, its effect is profoundly anti-therapeutic. In psychiatry these relations are more important than in any other medical field. The brief analysis of these relations, in the therapeutic context of a patient, is the subject of the following text. Understanding all these aspects has a direct effect on the quality and performance of the medical act.