The International Congress on Mental Health, and the Layman

Men and women whose daily work is not in the field of Mental Health are looking to the forthcoming International Congress* with increasingly hopeful interest. Why is this and how far are they justified ? Firstly, the very concept of Mental Health represents to the layman something constructive. Beset by specialists, bureaucrats and planners, all emitting their own jargon, he longs to hear someone talk sense about things which matter in his daily life, someone who realizes we are still individuals and not mere hypothetical units. And the layman knows something the experts sometimes forget, that common-sense is only talked by those who understand human nature. If Mental Health means anything at all, he reflects, it must surely