The sociophysiology of caring in the doctor-patient relationship
- 1 November 2002
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Journal of General Internal Medicine
- Vol. 17 (11), 883-890
- https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2002.10640.x
Abstract
The emotional investment required to construct a caring doctor-patient relationship can be justified on humane grounds. Can it also be justified as a direct physiologic intervention? Two lines of evidence point in this direction. People in an empathic relationship exhibit a correlation of indicators of autonomic activity. This occurs between speakers and responsive listeners, members of a coherent group, and bonded pairs of higher social animals. Furthermore, the experience of feeling cared about in a relationship reduces the secretion of stress hormones and shifts the neuroendocrine system toward homeostasis. Because the social engagement of emotions is simultaneously the social engagement of the physiologic substrate of those emotions, the process has been labeled sociophysiology. This process can influence the health of both parties in the doctor-patient relationship, and may be relevant to third parties.Keywords
This publication has 82 references indexed in Scilit:
- Job BurnoutAnnual Review of Psychology, 2001
- Repairing the Bond in Important Relationships: A Dynamic for Personality MaturationAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, 2000
- Moral distress, advocacy and burnout: Theorising the relationshipsInternational Journal of Nursing Practice, 1999
- Sources of stress, burnout and intention to terminate among rugby union refereesJournal of Sports Sciences, 1999
- Social ties and health: The benefits of social integrationAnnals of Epidemiology, 1996
- Stress and the IndividualArchives of Internal Medicine, 1993
- Talking Versus Hearing About Holocaust ExperiencesBasic and Applied Social Psychology, 1992
- The Stressfulness of Separation among Nine-Month-Old Infants: Effects of Social Context Variables and Infant TemperamentChild Development, 1992
- Improving compliance and increasing control of hypertension: Needs of special hypertensive populationsAmerican Heart Journal, 1991
- The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change.Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1957