The essence of the social role unconsciously (and, recently, ambivalently) given to physicians is crucial in sustaining the denial that is so basic to Western civilization - denial, that is, of death and of the suffering and chaos that are a normal part of life. It is fine for a parent to serve, transitionally, as a powerful and perfect object and, likewise, for physicians to be sensitive to the psychological regression that is a normal part of illness. However, there is nothing healthy for either patients or physicians in holding on to the illusion that the physician always carries boundless resources, certainty and strength. In any other relationship this would be viewed as dysfunctional.