THE PSYCHIATRIC CONSULTATION

The definition given indicates that the psychiatric consultation is usually not a regularly repeated feature of either the educational program or the total therapeutic effort. Its necessity is usually dictated by emergencies. The psychiatric consultation supports the instruction of the lecture course and seminar in the effort to create respect for technical terminology. It is in the area of treatment planning and treatment technique that the psychiatric consultation is closely related to the supervisory conference. The psychiatrist tends to give most of his attention to the removal of pathogenic conflicts. The author would like to round off this discussion by mentioning one more use of the psychiatric consultation. Besides the educational program there is one very important factor to be taken into account, and that is the personality of the individual worker. It is impossible to have a conference with a worker and not discover some of his assets and liabilities. It would be bad taste to discuss these openly in the presence of the other members of the team-it would lead to complications to discuss them with the worker in a private interview. Even the psychiatric consultation can acquire the significance and value of a psychotherapeutic session ! (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)