Psychiatry and Industry: Lawrence S. Kubie. Mental Hygiene, XXIX, 1945, pp. 201–208.

Dr. Kubie was one of 'ten physicians who practice psychiatry in New York City' who 'accepted the invitation of Mrs. Anna Rosenberg and the local headquarters of the United States Employment Service of the War Manpower Commission to join their staff in a study of problems of placement in industry'. The work convinced him of the possibility of the following contributions of psychiatry to industrial placement problems: '(1) screening out those who are totally unemployable and providing for their shelter, care, and treatment; (2) by allocating to specially chosen tasks, or to sheltered workshops, those who can remain well only under special working conditions; (3) by evaluating individuals both as to their special technical aptitudes, and as to their special personality quirks, and by allocating them to jobs for which their aptitudes fit them, and which are at the same time consonant with their personalities; (4) by applying therapeutic principles to the individual worker who is maladjusted and by using therapeutic principles within the industrial setting; (5) by using social-service procedures to assist workers in coping with those out-of-plant problems which affect both their total psychological adjustment and their plant efficiency; (6) by studying the incidence of neurotic disturbances in different types of work, and under different working conditions; (7) by comparing the efficacy of different systems of job training.'

Kubie knows, however, that in practice attempts of this kind will meet with difficulties. Labor may think the psychiatrists and employers in collusion, or may fear losing seniority rights by shifting jobs. Employers, who may be grateful to psychiatrists in time of manpower shortage, may in times of unemployment 'degrade psychiatry to devices which can function as a watchman at the door to screen out those they do not want'.

Kubie makes suggestions on how to avoid dangers of this kind.