ABSTRACT
The key to understanding these paradoxes is perhaps this: there are some fields—race relations springs to mind—in which the issue of ‘separation versus integration’ can be argued in the abstract. The integration of psychiatry into the work of District General Hospitals could mean that the human understanding of psychiatry will spread into medicine and surgery, and that there will be a new appreciation of the importance of mind-body relationships throughout District General Hospitals; or it could simply mean that the methods and assumptions of general medicine will be applied to psychiatric patients, whether they are appropriate or not. British reactions appear to be very similar. Attitudes to mental disorder are highly complex and potentially very volatile. General indications are that the non-residential services are beginning to expand, though this expansion is rather slow and very difficult to quantify. Local councillors are much more subject to local pressures than members of parliament, and less publicly accountable for their decisions.
