The public, the private and the intimate in doctor-patient communication: admission interviews at an outpatient mental health care service

BONNIN, JUAN EDUARDO

Discourse Studies

Sage Publications

Lugar: Londres y otras; Año: 2013 vol. 15 p. 687 - 711

1461-4456

This article analyzes doctor-patient communication at admission interviews in an outpatient mental health care service at a public hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These interviews are the first contact between professionals and patients, and they result in the admission or rejection of the latter into the medical institution. In particular, we observe how context, understood as a sociocognitive and scalar concept, is reshaped with gaze direction and agenda setting through interaction, resulting in three hierarchical spaces which can be represented as degrees in a scale: the public, the private, and the intimate level. This description will allow us to understand a series of communicative difficulties that may result from scale maladjustments, in which professionals interact with patients in different levels, and therefore, cannot give adequate feedback to satisfy the mental healthcare needs.