Psychologic aspects of gynecology and obstetrics

In the preceding pages, an attempt has been made to emphasize some of the more important psychologic aspects of gynecology and obstetrics. This review should be considered incomplete and the interested reader should refer to the many excellent papers and reviews on each of the topics mentioned and many more not mentioned. If there is any one guiding principle, it is that the obstetrician-gynecologist, more than most specialists, must be able to listen to and to hear the fears and anxieties of his or her patients. The need to include the patient as a partner with a controlling interest in her care is paramount. The gynecologist-obstetrician can truly become the patient's primary physician in the finest sense of the word.