ABSTRACT
In the 1960s there existed a popular view that much mental illness had its origins in 'conspiracies' and 'mixed messages' within families (see, for example, Laing and Esterson, 1964). At the other end of the 'spectrum' we have the more biological-psychiatric view, as set out, for example, in some of the standard textbooks of psychiatry such as that of Slater and Roth (1969) and others. Professor Gunn puts the position into perspective very well, when he states
somewhere in the confusion there is a biological reality of mental disorder ... this reality is a complex mixture of diverse conditions, some organic, some functional, some inherited, some learned, some acquired, some curable, others unremitting.
