Some debatable problems in social psychiatry

Abstract

The author discusses some of the ways in which social psychiatry has developed in different countries. He strongly disagrees with the common tendency to consider that social psychiatry is a new development of the past ten years. He also objects to any tendency to opposing social psychiatry, on the one hand, to clinical psychiatry on the other; both are forms of general psychiatry. As early as the nineteenth century Russian psychiatrists were aware of the problems of social resettlement of the mentally ill and, in particular, during the twenties and thirties of this century, Soviet psychiatrists realised clearly that they were creating a system of extramural psychiatry based on a network of dispensaries, day hospitals, psychiatric workshops and social and industrial resettlement services.