More than one half of all the hospital beds in this country are occupied by patients who are mentally ill; more than one fourth of the annual operating budget of New York state is now devoted to caring for the mentally ill; of some 15,000,000 men examined by Selective Service, 1,875,000 were rejected on the ground of neuropsychiatric disorders. This represents 37 per cent of the men rejected for all causes; and even after this initial screening, 39 per cent of all medical discharges from the army between January 1942 and December 1945 were classified as psychoneuroses.1At least 5 of every 10 patients who consult physicians today prove through examination to have no organic basis for their complaints. A small, highly specialized group of psychiatrists, working independently, have attempted to cope with this problem, but this group is so small and the problem is so great that it