Mental Health
Editorial
The International Congress on Mental Health is too near to attempt to estimate its eventual value, but we can say that its very existence indicates a step forward in international co-operation. Most notably, perhaps, it provides an occasion for people of goodwill from many different backgrounds, geographical, political and technical, to sit down together to discuss problems of the highest importance to society. Topics such as ” the genesis of guilt” and ” collective guilt” can scarcely fail to lead to a discussion of the origins of war; ” world citizenship ” the individual and society and others underline a growing awareness that it is not entirely beyond us to find more positive measures to ward off the calamity.
Most of us h|ve grown up in an atmosphere of nationalism and some to regard it as something natural, if not beneficial ; we are a long way from the internationalism of the middle ages when there were international organizations which provided a common cultural background and a common stability of purpose and ideas?however chequered was the foreground. It is true that some of these still exist; but they have lost much of their power; and moreover the somewhat sinister significance which terms like ” the third international ” have to our ears shows how far we have gone from this concept.
The common love of learning was, however, always one of the deepest international bonds and professional brotherhood is still a password across frontiers?and ” curtains Indeed the warmth with which our colleagues abroad greet the wandering Englishman has to be experienced to be believed, as we can well testify. The international congress cannot fail to go a long way to making these links even stronger.
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