Identification with the patient in a psychiatry clerkship.
In an earlier study medical students were found to view psychiatry with considerable anxiety partly because of an underlying fear of contact with psychiatrists and mentally ill patients. After supervising medical students for several years, the present authors found that the students' reactions to psychiatric patients may include, besides fear, a variety of behaviors which seem to reflect a process of identification with the patient. In this paper they describe various patterns of this process and their effects upon student-patient interaction.
D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education*