The dance of the medical consultation
Keywords:
dance, medical consultation, communication
Abstract
The doctor and the patient often start a consultation with different rhythms and conversational patterns, and then after a few minutes, they start to achieve a shared rhythm and common ground. The speech rates tend to equalise, and sometimes the hands and body movements may synchronise. It is part of the way in which we are hardwired to unconsciously mirror (called motor mimicry) the behaviour of other human beings.
Published
2014-09-16
Section
Peripheralia
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