The emotional expression in the relationship between doctor and patient

Doctor’s incapacity for catching the information about patient’s emotions is one of the elements that limit an efficacious therapeutic communication (Davis and Fallowfield, 1994). Moreover Goldberg (1991) points out the relationship between doctor’s skill to recognize patient’s emotive signals and patient’s capacity to face the illness and the emotions which are linked to it. Patient’s emotions awareness, again, is the main clue of the interview (Cohen-Cole 1991). Regarding the theme of the emotional regulation during the interview, Banninger-Huber (1997) underlines that the sharing of the patient’s mood - by showing some facial expressions of the same emotion - improves the quality of the relationship. According to Smith (2005), the doctor’s skill to focus and adjust his mood together with the others’ is the key dimension as it helps him to better his job’s quality. Finally according to Flowers (2005) emotional competence is one of the aspects of the doctor and of his activity. The study’s aim was to verify how, during the interview, doctor’s non-verbal emotional interaction is coherent with patient’s presence and expression of emotional signals. To identify facial expressions 8 conversations have been video-taped. In each tape 15 sequences with mimic-expressive behaviours containing emotional and expressive material have been focused. A FACS analysis has been made to point out the frequency and the quality of facial actions (AUs) containing emotional material that sorted out during the conversation. It is noticeable a meaningful difference with p