The Progress of Mental Hospitals. I

tration in Psychiatric Hospitals under the National Health Service You will not, I think, feel insulted if I call you a mixed audience |vith many and varying points of view?partly 'ay and partly medical?but we all meet on common ground in our interest in the manysided activities of the Mental Health Service and ^ Particular the ever-expanding work of Mental hospitals. May I, at the outset, try to make sure that we fU understand just what is meant by the word 'psychiatry "?for me, at any rate, it means ^at branch of medicine which is concerned with the prevention, causation and treatment of deviations of human behaviour. By using the ^ord " deviations " it presupposes that there is s^ch a thing as normal human behaviour?and the best one can do about defining that, is to say hat normal behaviour depends on the reasonably successful adjustment of the individual to his surroundings, i.e. he is in harmony with his er>vironment as far as may reasonably be exPected?because, I hasten to say, an uninterruPted and perfect adjustment cannot be exPected of any human being?after all, human re'ationships tend to be very complicated for us '? t Still, behaviour is the standard by which XVe judge the ability of an individual to lead a community life or to be in need of help and reatment in so doing, although there is no real .tiding line between normal and abnormal ehaviour, nor is there any true distinction etween what is socially acceptable and what ls not.