Marsha Linehan has a discussion about terminology in her treatment manual for borderline personality disorder. She says that she thinks there is a case to be made either way:

PATIENT (derived from the medical model):
good - patient sufferer. kind of stoic.
bad - helpless. needs paternalistic figure to rescue them.

CLIENT / CONSUMER (derived from the economics model):
good - autonomous consumer of healthcare (implies rationality)
bad - makes the therapy relationship out to be like any other contract for services (like getting ones hair cut or something. should we tip therapists?)

(She is a clinical psychologist. she said she felt neither term was optimal but we don't have a better one. so she went with one term in the book and the other term in the side-kick skills training manual to the book)