ABSTRACT
Occupational therapy and psychiatry are natural allies. They come at the patient from different points of view, but with similar aims. Occupational therapy and psychiatry, in particular, have much to offer each other. Hard times in health and social program funding are presently making it more important for mental health disciplines to work together. In the main, occupational therapy appears to be on the right track towards putting itself on a firm utilitarian basis. Psychiatry has come increasingly to recognize its debt to occupational therapy. Therapy is taking place when efforts are evolving to change someone's state for the presumptive better. There must be support among staff, most particularly on a psychiatric inpatient unit. Psychiatrists certainly need feedback, too, about their own performance. When a psychiatrist is the unit director, it is easy for him to become isolated from other staff. The tendency on the part of the staff is to hang back from expressions of positive feedback.
