The doctor-patient relationship - Psychiatry Specialty Training Program

Patients with mental illness may present from all walks of life and age groups. Psychiatrists rely largely on a comprehensive history and mental state examination in order to formulate a diagnosis and treatment plan. Relationships are usually long term and doctors find themselves exploring very personal and sensitive topics. This can be both a privilege and source of great satisfaction, but may at times be emotionally draining. Psychotherapy is frequently employed by these specialists. Modern psychotherapies tend to be problem focused, short term interventions. Intensive long-term therapies such as classical psycho-analysis (“on the couch” therapy, involving seeing patients multiple times per week) have fallen out of favour, although a range of medium to long-term psychotherapies exist, and advanced training in psychotherapy – a skill unique to this area of medical practice – is a part of the RANZCP training program.

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