The psychoanalytic concept of thought disorder encourages an analogy: mental illness is like a country whose government may be intelligent but which is hostile to its own or another country's citizens, or even threatens the planet itself; whereas a psychoanalyst at work in a mental hospital can be compared to an enlightened strategy for helping distressed populations and conserving world resources.

Dr Freeman describes a spectrum of disorder: from those so ill at ease that they cannot develop and enjoy their usefulness in the world, to the psychotic, living in a world of his or her own construction. There are others whose minds have been affected by drugs of addiction, injury or arteriosclerosis. Psychiatrists and their teams work together in a social