Abstract
In medical practice the staff, including clinical psychologists, should always take into consideration the following two aspects of the illness : the medical aspects of the illness and the patient suffering from it. Each of the two aspects should be dealt with by appropriate methods. The illness should be dealt with by objective scientific methods and the patient's psyche should be dealt with phenomenologically and psychotherapeutically, since the patient often manifests emotional reactions to the illness. These reactions, such as anxiety, tend to occur more frequently when the patient is not sufficiently informed of the illness or its treatment, and when he feels that he may not be well understood by the doctor. In order to provide good care to the patient, it should be emphasized in medical education that these two approaches should be integrated to establish a good doctor-patient relationship, although this may sometimes be difficult in Japan where hospitals are crowded and the staff has only a limited amount of time.
