[Empirical results on the consultation behavior of neurotic, psychosomatic and somatically ill patients II].

Three groups of out-patients classified by means of clinical diagnostics and testpsylogic characteristics as neurotic, psychosomatically and somatically ill, showed significant differences with regard to the variables 'duration of complaint', 'latency in seeking counseling', and 'number of consultants'. The data revealed a polarization concerning the positions of the neurotic and the psychosomatically ill patients. Neurotic patients exhibited an active participation in consultation characterized by critical evaluation of the physician's manner both in the professional and in the personal sector which must be classified as adequate to the complaint in question. The ulcer patients, in our investigation standing for psychosomatic patients, were passive in their participation in consultation and uncritical in regard to professional and personal aspects of the medical advice. Their significantly lower rate of changing consultants, compared to both the other groups, is interpreted as the expression of a specific object relation toward the physician they originally chose. Because of the somatically oriented qualification of the physicians consulted it can be stated that the behaviour of the psychosomatically afflicted patients is per definition inadequate to their illness since the psychic dimension of their suffering is not taken into account. The illness-dependent behaviour of the patients in the three groups under investigation may be interpreted as immanent to their afflictions.