The International Congress on Mental Health

The Third International Congress on Mental Health is now past history. The question which faces all psychoanalysts is whether they should give it a respectable burial with its predecessors, or try to grasp the significance of the labors which preceded it and the intentions of those who were its chief sponsors and impresarios.

This is not the place to discuss the value of individual contributions to the Congress, whether scientific, philosophical, or evangelical in type and purpose. This is the place rather to acknowledge the earnestness of those without whose efforts the Congress could never have become a reality and to evaluate their purposes and accomplishment.

Over 5000 scientists in the disciplines of psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, in alliance with physicians, psychiatric social workers, nurses, teachers, and members of the clergy, had met in groups of varying sizes in about 20 countries to pool their experience, debate their differences, and assemble their agreements, with a view to providing the basic materials for a report to the Congress by an International Preparatory Commission. This commission was assembled from 10 of the 46 participating nations, and included 24 representatives from several disciplines. After two weeks of gruelling work, by dint of burning the midnight oil, it prepared a report for the Congress which summarized and expounded those conclusions on which general agreement could be reached, conclusions on subjects which had been previously exhaustively discussed in the Preparatory Commissions. During the two weeks in which the Congress was in session, 20 study groups, comprising 300 scientists in all, spent many hours in discussing various aspects of this report, and in formulating suggestions for its extension or amendment. The report as it stands embodies recommendations to the new World Federation of Mental Health, to WHO, to UNESCO, and to the United Nations. Criticisms and amendments suggested by these study g