In sickness and in health

Shortage of manpower in the mental health professions makes it critically incumbent upon clinics to explicitly formulate their treatment responsibilities and to carefully appraise the efficiency with which they discharge their assigned tasks. A state of unhappiness is not necessarily a form of mental illness. Priority should be given to treatment of emotional and behavior disorders which have social impact. Clinics need to be sensitively open to the implications of research findings in reviewing their treatment methods and in striving for an effective flexibility in procedures. The clinic and client should have an explicit contract, not an implicit marriage.A version of this paper was given as an invited address at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Association of Mental Health Clinics, June, 1965.