[Physician-patient relations in the light of medical and psychiatric development]

The doctor-patient relationship in the light of medical and psychiatric evolution. The doctor-patient relationship can be studied from different points of view--social, economic, scientific, psychological. Considerable clarity has been brought to the matter by the application of the transactional approach of contemporary psychiatry. In the light of this approach, the relationship can be considered dynamically and in different societies of the past as well as in our time. This relationship, called also the doctor-patient communication, is closely related to what has been known as "the medical art" and is influenced by such different factors as specialization in medicine, medical education, personality of the physician, characteristics of the society, and so on. Such a relationship is not found, as a rule, in other scientific fields with man as their subject matter, and appears to be an almost exclusive characteristic of the medical profession. This evidently arises from the fact that medical practice has always been directed to concrete human situations.