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This paper evaluates and describes methods for making psychiatric distinctions. It is by means of psychiatric distinctions that individuals are labeled mentally ill or mentally well. Within the mentally ill category, patients are differentially placed according to the severity and type of their mental illness. The placement of individuals into psychiatric categories is an essential prerequisite not only to the clinical treatment of patients but also to any research where the objective is to determine empirical regularities associated with mental illness. Until the patient is categorized, the practitioner has no logical guide for how to perform treatment or even whether he should treat the patient—i.e, the patient may not be a patient. Similarly, unless the psychiatric researcher has categorized his subjects according to some notion of mental illness he has no way of making comparisons or of assessing change, the two essential processes in research. Thus, the logical first step for arty discovery of new knowledge in the field of mental illness is to appraise the reliability and validity of methods for making psychiatric distinctions. No research findings can be more reliable or valid than the psychiatric distinctions used in carrying oat the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper focuses on an attempt to validate a measure of mental health. The subject of the investigation is a scale included in a study of mental health in an urban area of southwest Michigan. The twenty-two questions used in the scale had been designed to assess the mental health of respondents in the New York Midtown study. Responses to these questions had correlated with the mental health ratings given by the Midtown study psychiatrists. One of the aims of the present study was to appraise the concurrent validity of a mental health scale derived from the questions used in the Midtown study. The scale was based upon a simple addition of the number of questions that were answered positively by the respondent. A summary score of "0" represented best mental health while higher scores were indicative of progressively poorer mental health. This scale will be referred to as the 22 Item Mental Health (MH) Scale. Two main techniques were used to evaluate validity. The first was the known groups procedure, in which the questions were administered to samples drawn from populations whose mental health was known or might be estimated. The second was the independent criteria method, in which other measures of mental health were compared with the results obtained from the 22 Item MH Scale.

The article presents information on changes related to mental illness and its treatment. It concentrates on the areas of mental illness and personal maladjustment. It focuses on whether folk beliefs concerning causes of mental disorder, folk attitudes toward the victims of disorder, and folk prescriptions for treatment give way to concepts and attitudes based on modern science. It analyzes changes that are taking place in generations of people and the conclusions be drawn by sociologists, social workers, and psychiatrists. It is concluded that the public have become more open to accepting modern and scientific viewpoints about mental illness. It is stated that the psychiatrist is being considered by the public as a logical person to handle cases of mental disorder.

This article focuses on the techniques and instruments in the implementation of mental hygiene diagnosis and therapy. Mental hygiene has already progressed from the earlier pathological emphasis on cure of mental disorders to their prevention. Furthermore, diagnosis and therapy are now interrelated in the process of improving an individual's mental health and several methods are now applied through the application of tests, autobiography, and projective techniques. Advances in medical technology has led to the greater emphasis on the individualization of therapy. There are several therapeutic approaches such as: (1) consultation and suggestion therapy; (2) change of environment as treatment; (3) educational therapy; (4) group activities as a method of psychotherapy; (5) therapy through the medium of play; (6) art therapy; and (7) occupational therapy. Finally, the emphasis on the studying personality as a process, adapting treatment to individual differences, recognizing the subtle influence of the therapist's personality, and understanding developmental trends in adjustment, has been the most important aspects in mental hygiene practices.

The article presents several research on the role of classroom interactions and teachers influence in combating mental illness of children in the U.S. The report of the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health contained recommendations in combating mental illness which include balanced portfolio of mental health services and research, suggestion for increasing government spending for all levels of mental health services, encourage towards health and helping professions. Ralph Rabinovitch, director of Hawthorne Center, indicated that schools must offer psychological guide through organize and challenging programs of academic studies and routines for emotionally handicapped children.

The article focuses on the improvement of teachers' mental health and its relationship to the children in school. The selection of candidates for teacher education should play an important part in any consideration of teacher mental health. A researcher comments that the training of the teacher for the real problems of mental hygiene is not a training in teaching techniques, it is a training in the understanding of human nature and its problems. It also offers information about the factors involved in maladjustment of teachers.

A sample survey using personal interviews was conducted in the Reno, Nevada, area to assess public conceptions of suicide and suicidal actions, attitudes toward the notion of suicide, attitudes toward people personally known to have committed or attempted suicide, and various degrees of familiarity with suicidal behaviors. Suicidal behavior by others was personally familiar to 74 percent of the respondents, and the general conceptions of suicide included shame and social disgrace, but not blame, to the family. Suicide generally was seen as something that happens to a person, rather than something he intentionally brings about. Public health implications of the data are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a study of 1,045 state mental hospital patients released on leave of absence during the calendar year of 1956 to the Oakland California Bureau of Social Work, a large amount of evaluative information was collected on post-hospital adjustment. Data from case records, administrative files, and hospital records were reviewed. They clearly demonstrated that most ex-patients did not possess a sufficient number of social resources to allow them to adapt to the world outside the state hospital. On the basis of these findings, one can easily understand why seven out of ten of these patients returned to the hospital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores socio-cultural and social-psychological factors associated with the voluntary utilization of a psychiatric outpatient clinic among students on a large university campus. Students who sought psychiatric care as compared to those who did not were (1) more likely to come from groups who were less integrated into traditional social institutions in terms of role expectations, (2) more likely to belong to or identify with other students who were more cosmopolitan in value-orientation and less integrated into the general collegiate milieu, and (3) more likely to have friends with social-emotional problems and were more likely to discuss such problems with greater frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to meet the increasing demand for educational services for emotionally disturbed children in public schools, the authors describe their use of one form of mental health consultation. This approach was focused on regular classroom teachers and school administrators who were in contact with disturbed children. All of the consultants were affiliated with a public school special class program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the problems of providing school mental health services to children in the U.S. Impact of mental health services on children; Details on the pattern of mental health and education; Benefits of developing a school mental health service.