Effect of Proximity on Anxiety and Communication in the Initial Psychiatric Interview 1

In the interaction between two conversing individuals, physical distance is usually considered to be simply background, and relatively unimportant. Recently, investigators have begun to reverse figure and ground to explore the dimension of interaction space as a variable in the relationship between persons. This … [chapter] reports the effect of physical distance, between psychiatrist and patient, upon the patient’s ongoing anxiety as measured by speech disturbance and upon the patient’s ability to communicate.