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This book is based on ten lectures given in Washington, D. C., between January 1966 and January 1967. The series was sponsored by the National Center for Health Statistics. The panel was chosen from contributors to the mental health literature with representation among disparate disciplines—psychiatry, psychology, sociology, biometry, and epidemiology. The concluding chapter contains a summary, evaluation, and recommendations by Dr. Sells, moderator of the Symposium and editor of this volume.
The immediate purpose is to review theoretical conceptualizations of mental health and illness together with related measurement strategies. The ultimate objective is to assist the Center in its planning for national surveys of mental health. The ten presentations are structured in frames of reference that reflect the authors' contrasting viewpoints. Consensus of opinion was neither anticipated nor achieved. A wider divergence appears in conceptual issues than in operational data-collecting methods. The primary focus is on concepts of mental illness, concepts of mental health, the nature of the relationship between mental health and illness. The measurement approach relates to case finding and screening surveys of disability and effectiveness.
Two polar positions are presented. One involves a dichotomy of mental illness versus health within the scope of standard psychiatric classification. The other rejects a disease interpretation and emphasizes cultural, social, and economic determinants. Overlapping appears in an attempt to seek a solution within the domain of psychiatry and medicine with recognition of social responsibility in mental dysfunction. A degree of convergence is established in the