Jerry Jacobs’s research while affiliated with University of California, Riverside and other places

This paper is concerned with two popular explanations of three common psychological states—perplexity, confusion and suspicion, as they occur within the context of doctor-patient interactions. It is generally held by practitioners that the above are symptomatic of (1) a failure of personality-maturation or disordered personality-functioning, or (2) an unconscious defense mechanism which functions to allay excessive anxiety which threatens to disrupt interpersonal relations. The author will provide a third explanation of their origins, i.e. the above psychological states are a natural consequence of the ambiguities stemming from the doctor-patient interactions themselves. The author will deal with five forms of doctor-patient interactions in which the doctor's handling of the transfer of information played a key role in establishing feelings of perplexity, confusion and suspicion in the mothers of retarded children.