The private versus the public psychiatric interview

As videotaping, one-way screens, and other audiovisual aids are used more frequently for teaching and research purposes in psychiatry, it becomes increasingly important to define how the fact of observation changes the traditionally private psychiatric interview. The author defines the difference between the public and private interview, reviews the pertinent literature, and describes personal experiences with a variety of observational situations. He focuses on how observation affects the concentration of the therapist, how it changes the social uniqueness of the therapy situation, and how, with the addition of a potential audience, the one-to-one situation may become more like a group situation, in which different psychological mechanisms may be employed.