This paper has reviewed the concept of community transference and has discussed its relation with the use of illusory phenomena in alleviating the discomfort of maintaining object-relatedness (23), and with nonpathological paranoia as a practically universal phenomenon of human groups (19-21). The importance of community transference in contemporary psychiatry is discussed and its challenge is described to the community psychiatrist who aspires to a clearer definition of his professional role. Training programs for community mental health personnel are proposed as a pragmatic response to a call for effective parsimonious services, and as a plausible alternative to woolly notions of the large scale prevent-ability of mental illness.
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