GROUP FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF PSYCHIATRY

An invitational organization with a membership of approximately 185 psychiatrists organized into working committees to study specific problems in psychiatry, mental health, and human relations.GAP came into being in 1946 largely as a result of psychiatric needs revealed by World War II and, in words of its first president, William Mennin- ger, “the frustration we experienced in attempting to practice psychiatry in the armed forces.” The fact that more than two and a half million servicemen were either rejected or discharged because of emotional difficulties brought the problem of mental health to a focus and gave rise to the idea of organizing task forces to deal with special issues. The investigating committees consist of a team of specialists, who usually work in collaboration with consultants from related fields—anthropology, biology, social work, education, statistics, etc. —in collecting and appraising data, reevaluating old concepts, and developing and testing new ones “on the advancing edge of psychiatry.” After studying the problem, they draft an action-oriented report to be reviewed and adopted by the membership as a whole. At present (1968) twenty-one working committees are in operation, dealing with problems in the following fields: adolescence, aging, the college student, child psychiatry, the family, governmental agencies, international relations, medical education, mental hospital services, mental retardation, preventive psychiatry, psychiatry in industry, psychiatry and law, psychiatry and religion, psychiatry and social work, psychopathology, public education, research, social issues, therapeutic care, and therapy.The organization’s widely circulated and highly influential publications include, to date, not only fifty-eight GAP Reports, but the proceedings of ten symposia on current topics, a regular feature of the semiannual meetings of the membership. Representative examples are Promotion of Mental Health in Primary and Secondary Schools, Mental Retardation—a Family Crisis, Medical Practice and Psychiatry, Psychiatric Aspects of School Segregation, Sex and the College Student, Psychiatric Aspects of the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Psychopathological Disorders in Childhood.