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The author makes critical use of official statistics on the rapidly growing school-age and adolescent population in America, on the increasing population in the older decades, on the projected future needs of the country for physicians and surgeons, and on the predictable future supply of medical students. From these data he calculates the discrepancy between the most conservative estimates of America's future need for practitioners of psychodiagnosis and psychotherapy and the most optimistic estimates of the future supply of medically trained psychiatrists. The author assumes further that for many decades the early use of psychodiagnosis and psychotherapy will continue to be our major preventive device. The conclusion is inescapable that the existing discrepancy is destined to become even larger. To fill this gap the author proposes that a new profession of doctors in medical psychology should be trained under the joint auspices of medical schools and universities, in close association with physicians, surgeons, and psychiatrists, to be licensed to practise psychodiagnosis and psychotherapy, but again only in clearly defined association with physicians. He views the development of such a profession as the only means of closing the gap; and urges that such a programme be launched in a series of small pilot tests, which should limit themselves at first to the training of teachers. The programme would begin to yield results for science and for the community as a whole in about twenty-five years.
In addition to these logistical arguments, the author presents philosophical and scientific reasons for believing that appropriately trained behavioural scientists who represent the various allied disciplines will make essential contributions to the science of psychiatry, as well as practical sociological and clinical contributions to the community.
As outlined by the author, the minimal basic training for such non-medical behavioural scientists would consist of: (a) scie