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IT HAS BEEN NOTED THAT depressive reactions occur in volunteers in service organizations, such as Peace Corps and VISTA, at various points in their training and field placements. By depressive reactions, it is not meant that all volunteers who experienced varying degrees of depression necessarily suffered from clinical decompensation. Indeed, Thomson and English (1963) stress that "The relatively low rate of returns gives the Peace Corps one of the best records ever achieved by an overseas program." These authors, among the first to report on the psychologic distress experienced by almost all volunteers, made the following interesting observations: First, nearly all the volunteers experienced anxiety in the first few weeks of placement in the host country. Second, they experienced periods of depression at between three and five months after placement. Third, the greatest number of dropouts of volunteers occurred during these two periods. The authors relate the period of depression to the particular point in time at which the volunteers first realized that early expectations for rapid achievement of goals were unrealistic.
Another interesting study was reported by Napolitano (1967), based on interviews of Peace Corps volunteers who had completed their two years of service. Napolitano's inquiry involved "depression crises"1 as well as the apparently milder "Peace Corps Blues." His group clearly was not disillusioned by the outcome of achievement. Though the majority felt they had helped the host