'Enough about Me, Let's Get Back to You': Physician Self-disclosure during Primary Care Encounters

摘要

Patients want a relationship with a physician with whom they can talk freely, and physicians vary in how they engage with patients. One form of engagement is self-disclosure, in which the physician reveals something personal about himself or herself. Historically, self-disclosure has been considered unacceptable in both psychiatry and medicine. Freud advocated that psychotherapists act as blank slates, and Osier advised physicians to maintain ae-quanimitas or impartiality (1). Recent psychodynamic literature stresses boundaries, calling clinician self-disclosure risky, potentially motivated by projection, and distracting to patients (2-5)#