In 1970 we studied the phenomenon of rejection in two units of a psychiatric rehabilitation hospital (Morgan and Cheadle, 1972). The study concluded that 20 patients out of a sample of 110 were rejected to some degree by some members of staff. The method employed to determine this was to ask all members of staff to name the patients who they considered fitted into certain categories. Ten of these categories indicated desirable behaviour such as helpful, co-operative or appreciative; the other ten were of an undesirable nature such as lazy, untrustworthy or attention seeking. The questionnaire used was published as the Appendix to our previous paper. If a staff member placed a patient into more undesirable than desirable categories he was considered as rejecting that patient. If more staff rejected a patient than accepted him, the patient was considered to be a reject.