Psychopolitics

Psychopolitics, Milton Greenblatt, M.D., Grune & Stratton, New York, 1978, $19.50.

I found Psychopolitics to be a book of considerable social importance. What is happening in a society at large inevitably finds reflection in the kinds of institutions it creates for the care of its mentally ill citizens. The profound ambivalence in our social morality about how our enormous national wealth is to be used is mirrored in the current uncertainty about how care for severely and moderately disturbed people should be funded. Not only legislators and politicians but members of our own profession tend to distance themselves from these far-reaching concerns.

Because Milton Greenblatt is offering a somewhat new area of psychiatric action, namely “psychopolitics,” I feel there is value in reflecting upon what kind of person is needed for successful leadership in such an area. One of the essential prerequisites for outstanding competence is evident in Greenblatt himself. It is the ability to be a “teacher-in-action.” Various individuals who are creative social action types and who have been innovators in their time come to mind, and particularly certain contributors to the field of psychiatry who explained and taught as they organized, and organized as they taught (Freud, Myer, Sullivan). To do this, one must have a far-reaching comprehension of how one's actions fit into the total fabric of one's immediate world, and an unusual ability to get inside the minds of all who make up that world. In formulating this notion I do not mean to overload Milton Greenblatt with an “image” and I hope I have not embarrassed him. I