Is there a Mental Hygiene?3

It becomes increasingly important that the term "Mental Hygiene" be more clearly defined. The difficulty in defining it has not been due necessarily to any inherent obscurity in the term itself. An individual wholly unfamiliar with the field of mental hygiene but accustomed to the use of words, if asked the question, "What is mental hygiene?" would be able at once and with little difficulty to give an answer. When the same question is asked of a "mental hygienist" he has the greatest difficulty in giving a clear and concise answer. Into his definition there comes, except for vague generalities, scarcely a mention of that which the term clearly implies, but rather an enumeration of the various activities engaged in by people or organizations at work in the field. It is unfortunate that the professional definition has drifted so far away from the obvious, clear meaning of the term, both because it confuses the thinking of mental hygienists themselves and because it alienates those outside the field who have reason to be interested in the subject. An intelligent public is confused and irritated if, led by the use of a term to expect one thing, it finds another and particularly if the thing it finds is so far removed from the thing it had a right to expect. This irritation is further increased by the awareness that his own use of the term is the correct one and the expert's use, however explainable, is incorrect and arbitrary.

The present point of view in the field of mental hygiene throughout the world is clearly revealed in the Proceedings