Some concepts of domiciliary psychiatric practice.

35 if I may get back to my stage. On the stage of Christendom, in seeking guidance to these profound problems of personal and national life which I mentioned so briefly, the people traditionally put at the centre of their stage, the man of God, the preacher in his pulpit. Even if both preacher and audience failed hopelessly down the centuries to live up to the message that was preached, nonetheless in all walks of life formal recognition was given to an optimistic divine purpose and to the active presence of the devil. But over the last 200 years the audience has become increasingly bored with this kind of sermon, and the reason for their distraction has been the dramatic entry of a flamboyant character, the wizard. In the dramatis personae of this fantasia the wizard is described as a "technocrat or technologist who believes in human salvation through scientific and industrial advancement: despises the preacher". The wizard's performance has been impressive and he deserves the thunderous applause he has been given as act follows act, moon rockets and monoamine oxidase inhibitors, atomic fission and television, jet propulsion and juke boxes, computers and contraceptive pills, no wonder the preacher has forgotten his words, but the wizard has become so pleased with himself-he knows not the meaning. of the word humility, and is a chap of endless conceit-that he has pushed the preacher into the wings, put on his robes, mounted the pulpit and started preaching sermons. I am sad to note that sometimes our later-day psychiatrists are not loathe to play the wizard in the pulpit. Now a pulpit is no place for a wizard, and his elevation there is a dangerous thing, dangerous because his sermon is based on a rather nebulous Freudian doctrine that the chief end of man is the pursuit of personal wealth and pleasure and touches not at all on the inescapable knowledge of good and evil. I make no apology for raising these issues, they cannot be ignored in any discussion on the prevention of neurotic breakdown, and I end by suggesting that if we are to look forward to a society which has stability and purpose, and therefore mental health, we must think seriously of putting the wizard in his proper place before the curtain is run down in chaos and darkness. Visiting patients in their homes is a tradition of British medicine, …