[Physician-patient relations in functional disorders].

The doctor-patient relationship is often problematic in relation to "functional disorders". A strictly biomedical understanding fails in two ways: first, because it does not incorporate psychosocial factors; second, because it does not take into account the body as a subject and carrier of meaning. A more integrated model would include a general understanding of the aetiology and presentation of symptoms (bio-psychosocial) as well as of symptoms and body as carrier of meaning (phenomenology). This way the patient's subjective experience, gender, social and cultural situation become medically valid information on par with biological parameters. This article describes how a bio-psychosocial and phenomenological understanding of symptoms can change the communication between physician and patient. We present some approaches that the physician may use when meeting patients with "functional disorders".