ABSTRACT
Many of the hypochondriacal patients under treatment in our clinic apply to us for recommendations that will enable them to acquire new flats. These patients complain that their mental condition is influenced by their poor housing and they are convinced that their health will improve with a change of abode. A most impressive piece of research by Wilner and co-workers investigated a thousand families and examined the influence of change of abode upon the general and mental health of the subjects. The investigators interviewed the families eleven times over a period of three years, and one of the interviews took place before the move. In the value system of western immigrants the house occupies a different position from that of their nonwestern neighbours. In the western family, the home is a place for the nuclear family exclusively and stands also as a status symbol.
