[The physician-patient relation in the light of the attachment theory. Attachment counseling].
The doctor-patient relationship has always played a key role in the patient's treatment and recovery process. However, it is still difficult to interpret its dynamic healing aspects. Above all, the mechanisms that enable the patient to improve and to change are not still sufficiently clear. The attachment theory assumes an emotional support of the doctor towards the patient. According to this, the patient completely "invests" the doctor of his emotions as in the ancestral model of family relationship. The possibility of obtaining success seems to be strictly linked to the doctors' capacity of accepting this "mandate" offered by the patient who autonomously takes this decision. Physicians deal with the complexity of pathologies every day and this shows an increasing necessity of a "doctor-patient relationship", enabling the physician to identify the patients symptoms in a more extended way which involves pain and suffering as well. As for the pharmacological intervention, the patient's attitude and expectations of recovery have a definite effect on the simple assumption of medicine. Today's physicians' scientific education would be extremely insufficient, if it were not encouraged by the awareness that his/her duty goes beyond the simple medical prescription. It has to reach the patient's heart as well as arouse the understanding of events related to him/her. This is not just a cultural factor but also a precise way of interacting with the patient according to one's own Counselling models.