ABSTRACT
Few would doubt that psychiatry and clinical psychology are going through a transitional period. The medical model, while still the dominant one in this field, is currently under attack from such diverse sources as humanism, psychoanalysis, behaviourism and existentialism. Perhaps the most serious charge levied against the medical model is that it has ceased to develop. The only new research findings these days are those concerned with new psychotropic drugs which purport to eliminate symptoms more effectively, and give rise to fewer side effects than their predecessors. Humanists and existentialists, by and large, favour the existence of therapeutic communities which are essentially community-based, non-authoritarian and flexible. Behaviourists would prefer to work in retraining establishments located in the community which would cater for all learning difficulties ranging from mutism in the autistic child to underdeveloped negotiating skills in the business man.
