THE ROLE OF MOTIVATION IN RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS
PAUL R. HAWLEY 1
1 Chief Medical Director, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Veterans Administration, Washington, D.C.
Motivation is an extremely important factor in the recovery from illness and in overcoming disability. This is true in many cases of somatic illness and of organic injury, and its influence bears little relation to the gravity of the basic condition. In psychosomatic illness and in psychosomatic sequelæ of organic illness and injury, it is of the greatest importance.
Motivation must be inspired and intelligently directed by the physician and his associates on the therapeutic team. Too often its influence is disregarded; and too often it is misdirected by careless, superficial study of the case. The worst employment of this powerful factor, however, is when apprehension is unduly aroused in the patient by ill-advised comments or overcautious advice on the part of his physician.
The application of psychiatry in the fields of medicine and surgery is slowly gaining ground. The situation is yet far from satisfactory; but the scientific program of the recent meeting of the American College of Physicians reflects the increasing awareness of internists to the necessity for treating the mind as well as the body. But, until psychiatrists recognize that psychotics often suffer from somatic disorders—which is another story that might prove revealing—and until other physicians recognize that almost all of the organically ill and injured suffer from psychosomatic disorders to a greater or lesser extent, patients will be denied the full potentialities of medicine.
