Psychiatry and psychoanalysis today have not lived up to their well-advertised and hopedfor promise. One has only to talk to disappointed patients and confused and frustrated therapists to ascertain this. The disappointments have provided a fertile soil in which new forms of therapy have been and continue to be rapidly introduced and exploited as a potential panacea for all human emotional ills.
In the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, Roy Grinker, Sr., MD,1 editor-in-chief, summarizes the current situation. Some of the history of psychiatry is traced, as well as its boundaries and directions in research. Contemporary psychiatry has adopted the psychoanalytic model almost completely: The basic study is that of psychodynamics of a dyadic "depth" relationship; the basic technique is by a participant-observer of "uncertain reliability." Grinker suggests a return to the very techniques by which so much progress was made years ago, namely, careful unbiased