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The 22-item scale developed through the Midtown Manhattan Study is considered from methodological, substantive, and theoretical perspectives. This paper concludes that the instrument is, at best, a very incomplete measure of mental illness. A review of previous literature suggests a more reasonable interpretation is that it measures psychological stress and physical malaise, although even for these purposes it is a less than ideal measure. Use of the instrument examining the relationship between stressful life experiences and mental illness is further discouraged due to a conceptual confounding of the independent and dependent variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from a mail-questionnaire study of adults in Alameda County, California, were used to replicate the essentials of Langner's analyses in the second volume of the Midtown Manhattan Study, but employing as a presumptive mental-health measure an eight-item Index of Psychological Well-Being. The results parallel the reported Midtown associations between selected stress factors and mental health as rated by psychiatrists from extensive interview evidence. The concordant findings suggest that both the Midtown psychiatrists' ratings and the Index of Psychological Well-Being may pertain to essentially the same psychological dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So-called "drug psychoses" can be interpreted as the anxiety reaction of a naive user occasioned by his fear that the temporary symptoms of drug use represent a permanent derangement of his mind. Participation in a drug-using subculture tends to minimize such Occurrences, because other users present the person with alternative explanations of his experience that minimize its lasting effects. A comparison of LSD and marihuana use suggests that the number of drug-induced psychoses varies historically, being a function of the historical development of a subculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]