Finding a doctor who listens and understands can be highly challenging, especially when you’re already in pain or dealing with complex needs. From an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) lens, the quality of our relationships, including with our providers, greatly affects our well-being. So, when those relationships feel dismissive or disconnected, it can make everything harder. Being listened to is not a luxury; it’s a basic human need and a foundation for effective care.
Over the past 7 years, I have had numerous medical encounters with dozens of practitioners. I “fired” most of these within a few visits, if not the first. This was because they could not attune, listen, or empathize, when those are the bottom line.
When a healthcare practitioner does not attune, hear, and believe us, the nervous system registers threat instead of safety. This disrupts core conditions for regulation: connection, resonance, and trust. Without those, our system can’t balance. Instead of support, the interaction becomes another source of distress, reinforcing dysregulation, isolation, and often retraumatization. What should have been a moment of repair becomes a rupture, leaving the person more alone with exacerbated suffering.
Many doctors fail to attune, hear, and believe us because the systems that train and employ them actively disconnect them from their humanity, and ours. Medical education prioritizes diagnosis, control, and liability over presence, listening, and relationship.
Doctors are often taught to suppress emotion, override intuition, and focus on symptoms, not people. They’re pushed to be efficient, not relational; forced to rush through appointments, rely on algorithms, and avoid “difficult” cases that don’t fit the model.
Many practitioners are dysregulated themselves. Their nervous systems are overwhelmed, shut down, or rigidly defended. If they can’t feel safe in their bodies they can’t co-regulate with ours. And so they fall back on distance, disbelief, or dismissal, because they’ve never been taught how to stay in connection when it’s uncomfortable. In a system built for productivity, not presence, attunement becomes a liability. And that’s exactly the problem.
I found one of my best doctors through luck and persistence. I called around to different practices and asked for someone who offered a specific procedure. A nurse referred me to a doctor in a different practice. The front desk staff and nurses often know which doctors have a heart.
If you’re seeking this kind of care, you might try calling some larger practices and asking directly for someone known for their empathy and listening skills. Sometimes, that one good referral can change everything. Doctors who listen do exist. It just takes a lot of digging and sometimes some luck.
