Some Reflections on Sex Relations between Physician and Patient

Sex relations between doctor and patient have at all times and in all places been looked upon as incompatible with medical ethics. Hippocrates specifically rejects them in his oath: . . Every house I shall only enter for the sake of my patients' wellbeing, refraining from every intentional harm and all seduction, especially from love relationships with women or with men, be they free or bonded. It is obvious therefore that we have no reliable data on these vetoed relationships which would permit statistical and/or other publications. We are dealing here with a matter about which the very persons who could supply these data are wise enough to keep absolutely silent. Consequently, anyone who wishes to penetrate this unexplored field must rely on casual, personal observations. These casual observations are largely based on statements of patients in individual or grout-analytical therapy. To a smaller extent the facts have come to me from the colleagues concerned colleagues under treatment or as partners of those of the first category. If a patient tells us during his or her psycho-therapy that she has maintained sex relations with one or more colleagues, our first reaction sprung from group narcissism and from good-fellowship-is that we are dealing with a phantasy. These phantasies are common enough indeed. Sometimes, though not always, they will sooner or later betray themselves as such. In that case they are often considered as wish-fulfillment and as proof of a positive transference. In my opinion, however, it can hardly be denied that where this wishful thinking is served up as an actual happening, at the expense of the reputation of the physician concerned, strongly aggressive tendencies towards him or her must have existed, and the entire

Family medicine · Child and Adolescent Health · Ethics in medical practice · Medicine · Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare · Psychology · Social Psychology

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