THE recent alliance between psychiatry and pharmacology has generated an almost overwhelming number of problems and new concepts. The most important offspring of this partnership may well be the threat posed by an impressive array of psychopharmacologic agents to the idea of relationship therapy, itself a fairly new concept. Therefore, a closer look at both concepts may serve to point up some of the important factors involved in relationship therapy-factors sometimes slighted in the present concentration on drug therapy. In any nursing situation, the relationship which is established between patient and nurse should be goal-directed. The administration of medications constitutes an important part of this relationship, and drug therapy comprises psychologic factors as well as pharmacologic effects. Therefore, the personality of the nurse, and the attitude she may bring into the situation, are significant; the active participation of this one member of the medical team helps to bring about the combined effect of pharmacologic potency of a given drug and a multiplicity of psychotherapeutic factors. Psychotherapy may be defined as that aspect of medical treatment in which relationship constitutes the principal therapeutic agent (1). Recent drug studies give evidence that this psychologic factor is being acknowledged, though not always understood or evaluated(29). Merely to state that one drug is a placebo and that another has a specific effect, or to generalize about the so-called placebo complex which is inherent in all drug therapy, seems to beg the question. Drug action takes place in a definite social milieu. It is, therefore, mportant to assess nurse-patient interaction, or what is going on' between the person who gives and the one who receives the medication. Moreover, one has to consider the particular setting in which drug therapy is being conducted, be it the patient's home, the doctor's office, or a hospital. It is only fair to state that such deliberations should apply not just to tranquilizing drugs, but to drugs in general. In every instance in which the administration of medi-