ABSTRACT
The number of psychiatrists and neurologists has vastly increased, and the field itself has been gaining in medical prestige as more and more medical students have been given early training in modern psychiatry. The college-educated are between six and twenty times as likely as others to go to psychiatrists. In terms of the distribution of psychiatrists, at any rate, this stereotype is true, for the majority of psychiatrists spend most of their time with office patients rather than with those who are hospitalized. In the first place, there is not one decision to go to a psychiatrist, there are many. People do not go to psychiatrists because they are "really sick." Persons in different social positions may have different expectations of what psychotherapy is like and what psychotherapists want to hear. Other social position factors are of course also important, but none, not even level of education, transcends this social circle membership.
