(You can read here some responses to the last issue of Mens Sana Monographs: Resolution of the Polarisation of Ideologies and Approaches in Psychiatry, Mens Sana Monographs, Mens Sana Research Foundation, 2004-2005, Vol II, No 4-5, Nov 2004- Feb 2005, ISSN 0973-1229.)*

1. I read with interest and appreciation your Monograph Resolution of the Polarisation of Ideologies and Approaches in Psychiatry. When I was a medical student in CMC, Vellore, Dr. Stafford Clark from UK visited us and gave a public lecture. The main message was that all diseases are psychosomatic, in the sense that emotions are involved in all diseases, either in the causation or in the perpetuation. This is all the more true in Psychiatry. The so-called polarisation into biological and dynamic psychiatry is artificial and misleading. In all psychiatric conditions, both genetic and environmental factors are involved. The only difference is in the degree of involvement. In psychoses, genetic factors are more important than environmental factors and in neurotic and personality disorders, environmental factors are more important. We have to advocate integration and not polarisation. There should be only one school of psychiatry— biopsychosocial model as proposed by Engel.

Dr. Abraham Verghese, Retd. Prof. of Psychiatry CMC, Vellore

2. The Monograph Resolution of the Polarisation of Ideologies and Approaches in Psychiatry is thought provoking. It has come out very well.

Dr. J.K.Trivedi, Immediate Past President, Indian Psychiatric Society

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* This monograph has been listed for review by JAMA, May 18, 2005, 293, p2417 -2418. You may review it for the journal if you desire.

Psychiatry, Science, Religion and Health, our Annual 2004 issue, is also listed in JAMA, 20th July, 2005; 294,p377-378.

 Ajai R. Singh and Shakuntala A. Singh 35