Moreover, the goals of the mental h

Moreover, the goals of the mental health movement have tended to range all the way from the aetiology of disease to consideration of the causes of unhappiness; from the treatment of the mentally ill and aftercare programmes to the mental hygiene of daily life; from the management of well-understood mental disorders to the promotion of mental health. Some workers have expressed the opinion that mental health efforts should be devoted largely to the improvement of care for the mentally ill; that too much emphasis is placed on prevention, in view of the fact that available knowledge in this area is meagre. They further contend that only very modest preventive efforts should be undertaken within a public health framework.Others maintain that there are sound bases for preventive programmes in the psychiatric field, and that these warrant consideration by public health administrators.