Abstract
The psychoanalyst has much to contribute to medicine, more through the teaching of observational skills and an appreciation of relationships than through the teaching of psychoanalytic technique or language itself. The analyst can promote tolerance in the physician of the unusual, an examination of the impediments of habitual ways of working and seeing, and a facility in the patient to “be himself.” Attention to the unusual, as illustrated through experience in training-cum-research seminars, can enhance the doctor's satisfaction with his professional life while offering improved care to his patients. When psychoanalyst, physician and patient interact in their roles as people, there is hope of an improved quality of human existence for all.
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