Social maturity test

It has been said that when a psychiatrist is appointed to a general hospital the staff only by stages come to make use of his services. The first phase is that in which he is called upon to dispose of those patients suffering from severe mental illnesses, whose behaviour is disturbing to the rest of the ward. In the next phase he may be called upon to deal with psychotics and severe psycho-neurotics. The third phase comes when surgeons and physicians refer to him all those patients they have investigated for whose symptoms no organic basis can be found. A fourth phase is when the psychiatrist is asked to co-operate in the treatment of such psychosomatic cases as asthma, colitis and migraine—and in the last phase, when the psychiatrist has proved his worth, he may be asked to advise on the handling of patients suffering from “wear and tear diseases,” frank organic diseases, such as gastric ulcer and hyperpiesia (1).