Non-medication compliance is essential when taking care of chronic cardiovascular diseases.Therapeutic patient educational (TPE) programs are proposed to patients in order to helpthem to « have a better life with their disease » (WHO, 1998). However, those programs’evaluations are disappointing: they reach very few patients and are not as efficient asplanned.Drawing on semi-structured interviews with general practitioners (GPs, N=14) and patientsdealing with a cardiovascular chronic disease (N=19), and quantitative analysis of datarelated to a potential link between social factors and types of behaviour, this study firstemphasizes the diversity of Backgrounds (Searle, 1982, 1985) which may influence patients’life-style modifications. This work then defines four patient-types and three therapeuticstyles applied by GPs when confronted to those patients. Those styles vary according to GPsrepresentations and attitudes related to therapeutic education and cardiovascular diseases.This study shows that even though GPs are more likely to help with this transformation thanmandatory educational programs, the encounter between them and chronic patients doesnot happen, or only does in very specific and fragile conditions. Nevertheless, this anthropodidacticalapproach allows us to draft new forms of didactic engineering for TPE and to givenew tracks for healthcare professionals training.