Abstract
I hope I may be allowed to start this paper in a personal vein. During a long career as a student and teacher in social psychology, two of issues that have been of great concern to me are: first, psychological aspects of international relations; and second, significance of social factors in causation of mental disorders and preservation of mental health. These two concerns became intertwined for me when I participated in formation of World Federation for Mental Health, in London in 1948. 1 was one of authors of its first publication, Mental health and world citizenship [1], which included these words: ' 'The goal of mental health is to enable people to live together in one world. In course of recent exacerbation of cold war and accompanying proliferation of nuclear weapons by two superpowers, it has become all too clear that in such an atmosphere this particular goal of mental health is, at least for time being, the impossible dream. If anything is to be done in this connection, first step should logically be to determine consequences of this situation for people's mental health, particularly young people's. In preparing a paper for annual meeting of American Psychological Association in 1983 , published in The American Psychologist in 1984 [2] under title Public opinion and nuclear war, I reread
Published Version
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