Menninger reviews the development and increasing therapeutic effectiveness of American psychiatry from the early days when it consisted largely of the diagnosis and care, but almost never treatment, of colonies of committed patients, through the period of psychobiology, to the recent days when psychoanalytic concepts have been increasingly accepted and used in understanding and treating patients. It is not altogether good that most therapists trained in psychoanalysis enter private practice. The psychiatrist who functions with catholicity as a counselor for troubled people is to be found less frequently in general practice than in hospitals and clinics. Systematic taking of histories and descriptive clinical observation are today often neglected.