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The isolating nature of psychiatric work, especially if it is psycho-analytic work, tends to limit the range of the physician's vision and philosophy and may nourish any tendency he may have towards autocracy. He may become prone to choose as his patients those cases with which experience has taught him his technique is likely to be most successful. This further restricts the range of activity and may make the psycho-analyst narrow, opinionated and intolerant of techniques other than his own. Oberndorf repeats the advice that the analyst continue his own analysis in intervals of five years, but the self-satisfaction produced by successful practice is usually so great that few men are willing to resubmit themselves to the critical scrutiny of a new psycho-analysis. To counteract this pernicious tendency the analyst should associate himself with a psychiatric clinic or general hospital.
It is also desirable for private psychiatrists to join in a group practice. In such groups it would be desirable to have psychiatrists of varied interests, such as psycho-analysts, psycho-analytically inclined psychotherapists, therapists rarely using psychoanalytical techniques but rather the re-educational, suggestive, and persuasive approaches, or milder forms of ambulatory shock treatment. The group should also contain psychiatrists specializing in certain forms of mental illness, such as alcoholism, or in the care of disturbed children and adolescents, and those serving the parents of average children in an advisory capacity.—The practice of psychiatry is likely to expand further provided it can supply better service to a larger number of people.
Oberndorf's paper amounts to a thoughtful statement 'on psychiatry for psychaitrists and psychoanalysts'. Perhaps the author could have put some more emphasis on the healthy influence which teaching has on the psychiatric teacher. To a certain extent, psychiatric and psycho-analytic teaching safeguards the teacher against the danger