Abstract
Abstract This paper focuses on some problems emerging from the doctor-patient relationship, when subjectivity is identified and considered. We discuss the passivity and alienation of the patient manifest in the current medical approach to sickness. Then, we stress the role of psychotherapy in allowing apprehension of the meanings that all diseases have, when lived as personal illnesses. We present a case report of a ‘difficult’ patient treated by psychodynamic psychotherapy
Highlights
The apprehension of the meaning of the symptoms of the patient can be derived from the careful analysis of the links between the onset of the symptomatology and relevant aspects of the life history of the individual
What can be derived from the particularities of this case report, searching amidst the richness of any individual history? We shall look for a pattern of construction
The psychoanalyst or even a well-trained general physician should, as Hypocrites did, investigate the links between life and pathology, personal history and onset of symptomatology, chronicity and desires, fears or expectations, and aggravations or ameliorations of symptoms
Summary
The apprehension of the meaning of the symptoms of the patient can be derived from the careful analysis of the links between the onset of the symptomatology and relevant aspects of the life history of the individual. To further discuss lets divide the problem in three inter-linked aspects: 1) the meaning of the disease for the doctor; 2) the meaning of the disease for the patient; 3) the meaning of the disease for the personality and the life of the individual.
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