ABSTRACT
In the last 150 years research in medicine has focused mainly on biomedical science, reflecting an implicit acceptance of scientific positivism. Interest in the non-biological aspects of clinical practice has had no sustained history but rather is characterised by peaks and troughs of attention. This chapter looks at the evidence that supports the possibility, namely of a therapeutic outcome to the relationship between the doctor and the patient. Closer to clinical medical practice, Freud was the first to introduce a vocabulary that hinted at potentially therapeutic, as well as disastrous, consequences of the interaction between a therapist and a patient. The nature of parent–child relationships seem to be associated with health status in adult life too. In the 1990s, links between unhappiness in childhood and poor health in adulthood began to emerge, for example linking slower rates of growth in children who had experienced a traumatic childhood.
