The mental health of people at work, whether manager or bench worker in a factory, doctor or nurse in a hospital or surgery, executive or clerk in an office, is obviously of great social and even national importance. In most years far more days work are cost from psychiatric illness than from strikes; and, besides, there is considerable loss of efficiency from illness, even when the worker does not go absent. Although the majority of illnesses are probably due to a concatenation of factors, including domestic, there are some conditions in factories and elsewhere that appear to precipitate or predispose to mental ill-health.

This is a completely personal statement about misuse of psychiatry requested by the Editors presumably because I was one of the first psychiatrists to organize a protest about the U.S.S.R. (1). I did so (i) because the documents available to me (essentially 2 and 3) seemed to contain prima facie evidence of the use of certification in the interests of Soviet political policy, (ii) because it seemed impossible for Soviet citizens to protest, and (iii) because I was, and am, at least a quasi-Marxist, enthusiastic, disheartened and confused by the realities as I see them.

A one-day conference, sponsored by the British Association for Behavioural Psychotherapy (BABP), was held at Clare Hall, University of Leicester, on 15 April 1973. The 60 invited participants included representatives of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Psychological Society, the Royal College of Nursing, the General Nursing Council, the Joint Board of Clinical Nursing Studies, the Department of Health, and workers active in the field.

The Government policy document ‘Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped’ which outlines new strategies for the care of the mentally handicapped drew attention to the significance of recent research in determining the new attitudes and approaches in this field. This included research into the nature and cause of mental handicap, the development of educational and training techniques, the evidence of basic epidemiological data and the effect of alternative methods of care.