Mental Health

The 7,000 members attending the annual convention of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco last week were less preoccupied with individual case histories than with the psychic condition of the nation. Most of them agreed that the patient is ill, and many shared the view of Dr. Seymour Halleck, who declared: "The No. 1 mental-health problem in our society is the Indochinese war."

Psychologist Kenneth Clark was originally scheduled as the main speaker but bowed out due to "hypertension." His replacement was Berkeley Political Scientist Sheldon Wolin, who argued that "The political life of this country is exhibiting unmistakable signs of derangement and systemic disorder. I would submit that the present crisis is the most profound one in our entire national history: more profound than either World War I or II, more profound than even the Civil War, and more profound than the struggle for national independence in the 18th century. In contrast to previous crises, the present one finds the country not only divided, confused, embittered, frustrated and enraged, but lacking the one vital element of self-confidence."

For all the disturbing, unattractive growth of protest and protesters. Wolin concluded, the need for reform becomes clear "if we think about how much it has taken to make modest progress in our racial problems, urban problems, environmental problems and the rest, how much it has taken to move this ponderous system ever so slightly." The A.P.A.'s trustees voted to spend the next two years studying violence, seeking alternatives "to preserve man from his own destruction."

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