CONSULTATION-LIAISON PSYCHIATRY 1990

Consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry is a subspecialty concerned with clinical service, teaching, and research by psychiatrists in nonpsychiatric health care settings. These activities are focused on the physically ill and on the somatizing patients. The main objective of C-L psychiatry is to maintain a bridge between psychiatry and medicine for the sake of providing biopsychosocial health care. C-L psychiatry's functions include clinical work, teaching, and research at the interface of psychiatry and medicine. This field has grown substantially in the past two decades as is brought out in this article.