Medical students often resist accepting psychodynamic understanding and show anxiety because of identification with patients. Fourth-year medical students not intending to become psychiatrists were offered clinical clerkships of eight weeks which included groups for discussion of their interviews and the emotions these interviews aroused. For the first two weeks the students were defensive, tense, and oversympathetic to patients. They neglected to ask about sexual and childhood experiences, tending to attribute much of the illness to cultural causes. In the next period they could discuss their own anxieties, were less tense with patients, and less fearful of their instructors. They identified themselves with the instructors but felt themselves in need of analysis. Finally their ability to interview and to diagnose, and their personal anxieties and relationships, improved.