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Preventive Psychiatry—is There Such a Thing?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

G. M. Carstairs
G. M. Carstairs*
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council, Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital, London, S.E.5
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Extract

The task of preventive psychiatry—if there is such a thing—can be expressed in a positive form as the promotion of mental health; but mental health can be defined in two ways: as the absence of recognizable mental illness or, in more grandiose terms, as the realization to the fullest possible extent of one's personal potentialities. The latter concept has been denounced by some authorities as representing much too wide an extension of psychiatry: that it continues to be prominent in discussions of mental health programmes and the like is due to the insistence of laymen perhaps even more than of psychiatrists. It appears that in the Western World people are increasingly turning to psychiatrists for the answer to problems which once would have been the concern of priests or politicians. That they do so is a psychiatric problem in itself; that they will continue to do so in increasing numbers seems very likely—so we had better have our answers ready, even if they are only disclaimers of problems which do not concern us.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 104 , Issue 434 , January 1958 , pp. 63 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1958 

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