ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights that it is relatively easy to label consultations as being 'good', 'bad' or 'difficult', but it can be harder to work out what it is that makes them so. Health professionals tend to think about difficult consultations as being a problem for us, the clinicians – but they are often equally uncomfortable for their patients. There are many 'ordinary' consultations, though, that feel more difficult than they would expect. Conscious awareness of potholes and pitfalls can help practitioners to do some-thing about them before the consultation goes really badly wrong. Sometimes the difficulty seems to lie in the relationship between the clinician and the patient. Sometimes, aspects of the consulting room can have a negative influence. The chapter helps practitioners to look at their consulting room from the patient's point of view, and to understand how it feels to be the patient in the consultation.
