THE PROBLEM OF TEACHING PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTITUDES TO MEDICAL STUDENTS
ELEANOR A. STEELE M. D.
In this paper, a descriptive and verbatim report has been offered of methods employed and results obtained in the teaching of dynamic psychological concepts to medical students. In the preparation of autobiographical illustrations of personal conflict and the mechanisms of defense, a large majority of students in the Sophomore classes have accurately demonstrated a degree of understanding of these mechanisms in themselves or in others. In class discussions and in examinations dealing with case applications, they have shown similar ability to think in dynamic terms. In a voluntary anonymous questionnaire dealing with the attitudes of students toward the autobiographical application of the mechanisms of defense, a majority of students (over 75%) endorsed this part of the teaching program.
The one emphasis of major importance in the program is the value of reducing the student's prejudice and of showing him that psychological illness is as naturally understandable, acceptable, and as common to man as is physical illness. In an effort to bring the normal and abnormal into greater approximation, the introspective exercises described and the application of dynamic concepts to himself and to others have proved a valuable aid to the student in increasing his understanding of the ways of adjustment. These dynamic methods were successfully used in one aim of psychiatric education: "to change the student's inner self and, through this change, to enable him to do better work with his patients." They also served to aid the student in his understanding of the relationship between psychiatry and medicine.
