The general practitioner and the psychiatrist: a failure or a success? The authors present the conclusions of a workshop which was organised in the framework of the annual congress of the Swiss General Practitioners Society which focused on the collaboration between primary care practitioners (MPR) and psychiatrists in the framework of the mental health care network. These few ideas resulting from a sort of focus group of MPR, animated by a general internal medicine practitioner and a psychiatrist, allow for the exposal of misunderstandings and ambiguities and the insistence on the importanceofrelational ethics, on role sharing, and the analysis of emotional and defensive motions in order to favour inter-professional cooperation.