The incongruity between the growing emphasis on massive community psychiatry and our inability to provide services is discussed.
Both literature and experience in treating lower class patients in an out-patient setting are reviewed.
A pilot study in which selected lay volunteers with very brief training are used as psychotherapists in an out-patient setting, is described.
The preliminary results suggest that volunteers make adequate therapists for certain kinds of patients and that observation of their work may provide some useful information about the therapeutic process.
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