ABSTRACT
The interpersonal relationship is one of the most basic concepts in social psychology. Yet, beyond research on romantic or mother-child pairs, the study of particular kinds of one-to-one attachments has been sparce among researchers in this field. The focus of this chapter is upon the relationship between doctor and patient. It is one of a class of functional or professional relationships—that between a service provider and a client. This type of relationship, which is well within the formal bounds of the field, has generated very little social psychological research until quite recently.
