The Twenty-Minute Hour: An Approach to the Postgraduate Teaching of Psychiatry
PIETRO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO M.D.1
1 Chief, Department of Psychiatry, Harbor General Hospital, Torrance, Calif. 90509, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles
Approaches to the teaching of psychological medicine to nonpsychiatrist physicians have varied greatly. The author describes an approach based on brief, supportive psychotherapy; it is his conviction that psychotherapy is the chief instrument the practitioner needs to learn if he is to discharge his responsibilities to his patients in the area of psychological medicine. Emphasis in this training program for residents in internal medicine is on actual contact with a patient. Problems that commonly arise are reviewed.
