Medication possesses a potential for therapeutic efficacy far beyond its chemical capacity if prescribed in ways which enlist patients' personality traits in a therapeutic direction. “Prescription” in this sense includes the physician's attitude (as the patient sees it) and subtleties in the way he fits his instructions to the kind of patient he is dealing with. This presentation deals with four kinds of patients—widely different in what they need from the physician—for whom some therapeutic “placebo” effect of prescription can be brought to bear:1. Patients who are unduly fearful about what is wrong with them, and who look to the physician for calm sureness.2. Systematic, controlled, organized patients, who like to share in their own medical management.3. Patients who are excessively depressed about being sick.4. Patients for whom “nothing works,” but who can be helped by a physician who is willing to accept “failure” in dealing with them.For all of them, careful appraisal and sophisticated treatment are necessary.
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