Psychiatric Orientation: a Study of Attitudes Among Psychiatrists

Over the past few years, workers in many diverse fields have become interested in the framework of the psychiatrist-patient relationship as a matter for study in its own right. Yet the pattern of professional opinions, conveniently subsumed under the term “orientation”, which the psychiatrist brings with him to the clinical situation, has received very little attention. In this paper an attempt will be described to measure certain aspects of psychiatric orientation, and to explore how these may be correlated with other variables.