Transference to a medical center. A cultural dimension in healing.

The phenomenon of transference to a medical center is similar to the transference given to an individual physician, the feelings being invested in The Center rather than in a person. The reputation and the image of The Center can give therapeutic sustenance. There are common features to each healing organization from primitive times to the journeys to the Oracles at the shrine of Zeus at Dodona and Apollo at Delphi, to Mecca and St. Bartholomew's Hospital, to Lourdes and Gheel, and to the present-day medical center. A phenomenon which we have identified as Transference to a Center has previously been known to physicians, theologians, historians, sociologists and anthropologists, by different names. In a social sense, transference to a medical center is akin to an Edifice complex.