Consultation-liaison clinical psychology in modern general hospital practice

The past few decades have witnessed rapid international development of the interface between psychiatry and the mainstream of medicine. This development, which is a characteristic of general hospital psychiatric units, has become known as consultation-liaison psychiatry and has evolved as a clinical and teaching activity dealing with psychosomatic medicine. Problems of health and illness are inextricably related to physical as well as behavioural and environmental factors, each contributing to problems encountered in the medical management of patients. Therefore as a corollary to the developments mentioned above, a new role has emerged for clinical psychology within the general hospital and has become known as 'medical psychology'. By this term is meant all the medical applications of normal and abnormal psychology. A clinical psychology consultation-liaison service in a general hospital is discussed and an analysis of 1 092 consultations and 4 193 outpatient attendances at a psychiatric unit of a general hospital between 1 January and 30 June 1982 is presented. A rationale for the role of the clinical psychologist as a consultant within the medical setting is suggested.