The consultee-attended interview: an approach to liaison psychiatry

The consultee-attended (C-A) interview, a format in which the liaison psychiatrist interviews the patient in the consultees' presence, is described. The background, strategy, concepts and methods, obstacles and resistances, and countertransference difficulties of C-A interview are discussed. The C-A interview is an experiential teaching instrument with which to facilitate consultees' "participant-observation," a clinical posture that complements other approaches to the care of sick people.