This is a report of a one-year pilot project of community psychiatric service to three small towns in the northern part of the Province of Ontario. Data acquired in the course of this project are described and an attempt is made to derive from them a more accurate assessment of the mental health requirements of these communities. The concept of ‘community transference’ is advanced to cover the complex of reactive tensions set up in a community by visitors attempting to change deeply-held attitudes to psychiatric disturbance and to alter traditional modes of dealing with these patients. ‘Community transference’ is a theoretical construct which may prove useful in projects where success depends upon modifying community attitudes.
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