The Tasks of Psychiatry

Extract

It is perhaps of some small interest that the President of the Section of Neurology delivered last week in this building an address on “The Borders of Neurology,” and that for to-night I had chosen to speak on what is obviously a related topic, the “Tasks of Psychiatry.” It is, of course, possible that behind this choice of our titles there may simply be a geriatric problem, for the President of the Section of Neurology and I worked together as members of the same Field Ambulance in the Battle of the Somme, just over 32 years ago. On the other hand, there may be more than this in it, and perhaps we really do need to define our fields rather more clearly and to make sure what our tasks are, and how we are best to meet them. In fact, I think that the question of the actual borders of psychiatry, as apart from its tasks, was dealt with quite convincingly in the Joint Report of the Royal College of Physicians, the B. M. A. Psychological Medicine Group and the Royal Medico-Psychological Association.