2013 Volume 25 Issue 1 Pages 33-40
Most professional liaison psychologists have not been trained in primary care settings. There are two difficulties for those psychologists who work as members of ‘psychiatric liaison team’. One is the difficulty of collaboration within their own team, and the other difficulty is with a primary team. This paper demonstrates difficulties and proposes resolutions in collaboration among other health care professionals. A functional analysis of consultation reveals that the difficulty in collaboration within their team derives from the fact that the team consists of similar professionals, whose roles often overlap, and where psychological interventions are not defined clearly. To resolve this problem, expertise of psychologists and mutual respect among the team members are necessary. The difficulty of collaboration with a primary team derives from their function as a consultant. Psychologists who do not have sufficient knowledge of medicine and general medical services sometimes cannot fully understand the problem. There are two proposed resolutions. The first is to develop their abilities in comprehending the case from multiple points of view. The second is to enhance their communication skills in order to share crucial information among the medical staffs and in order to solve the problem.
