Dr Jim Birley will take up office as the new President at the Annual Meeting in July. He has been Dean of the College since 1982. Previously, he was Dean of the Institute of Psychiatry from 1971 to 1982. He has been a Consultant at Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals since 1968. He has a particular interest in social psychiatry and the care of persons suffering from long-term psychiatric disabilities. Dr Birley writes: I have led a sheltered life, being born in 10 Upper Wimpole Street where my father practised as a neurologist, and my mother campaigned for the League of Nations, refused to help in the General Strike, and voted for the Labour Party. My father died when I was five years old. In psychiatric terms, this would probably rate as the most significant event of my childhood. In practical terms it meant that my mother settled with her young family in the home of her parents in Essex. I grew up in an ‘extended’ family, on a farm, and acquired a strong taste for village life, the planning and planting of gardens, and the exhilaration of playing silly games. With no one to rebel against, I followed my father's footsteps to Winchester, University College, Oxford, and St Thomas's. As a National Service medical specialist in Germany, I was alerted to the possibilities of psychiatry by witnessing the remarkable effects of treatment on the wife of a friend. This, and a chance encounter, at the RSM, with Dr Tony Isaacs, at the time a recent and enthusiastic convert to the Maudsley, were the lucky accidents which let me into a speciality where chance has always played an important part.

At the College's Autumn meeting in 1984, a joint British Psychological Society (BPS)/Royal College of Psychiatrists Conference took place on the theme ‘Psychiatrists and Psychologists—Co-operation or Confrontation’. This was reported in the Bulletins of the College (June 1985) and of the BPS. It was generally agreed to have been a success, but perhaps at the price of being over-polite. A ‘more focused and hard hitting’ meeting was suggested for the future.

After the introductory talks and for the early part of the afternoon participants split into five speciality groups. All groups had one or two psychologists and psychiatrists acting as facilitators. Facilitators were given detailed briefs to encourage a structured and constructive response to certain themes across the groups. This brief is available from the College or the BPS. I was allowed a roving observer's role between the groups and was asked to report back on the final plenary session. The account which follows is a personal view intended to give the flavour of the proceedings.

1. These recommendations are derived from the report of a working party on education and training set up by the Section for Social and Community Psychiatry in 1984. A companion paper deals with recommendations for Senior Registrar posts in Rehabilitation and in General Psychiatry. The recommendations for the most part do not represent new departures, but are mainly explicit descriptions of what is currently included in good training programmes, developments which are already increasing or recommendations made in previous documents. With the forthcoming expansion of psychiatric care in the community, appropriate training is increasingly required.

Professor Reg Medlicott died at New Plymouth on 9 September 1986. He was 73.

Dr J. M. White, for many years consultant psychiatrist at Stanley Royd Hospital, Wakefield, and St James's Hospital, Leeds, died recently.