ABSTRACT
The most far-reaching and durable benefits from liaison work lie in improved communication and enriched understanding, both within the multidisciplinary therapeutic team and between patients and professionals. Analytical psychotherapy requires more commitment from therapist and patient than is possible in liaison work, in which psychotherapy usually comprises four to six 50-minute sessions, sometimes followed by a group. Normal and desirable illness behaviour includes anxiety, help-seeking and more or less co-operation with professional advice, followed either by restoration to health and previous activity or whatever compromise is viable. With disease seen as a major threat to life or to lifestyle there are temporary adjustment strategies: denial, regression, withdrawal, irritability. The therapist must make an alliance with each of the pair, and constantly change sides in his support. The essentials are muscular relaxation, rapport with the therapist and a hierarchical presentation of feared situations or activities in imagination or in practice.
