Psychiatrists and clergymen seem to be getting on better and better.When committees representing both groups (including Roman Catholic,Protestant and Jewish clergy) met 18 months ago to see whether theycould cross-fertilize each other’s professions, they set up theNational Academy of Religion and Mental Health (TIME, April 9, 1956).The academy’s tiny Manhattan office, run by the lev. George ChristianAnderson (Episco-Dalian), was swamped with applicants for membership.By now it has signed up some 1,400 psychiatrists (more than 10% of all those practicing in theU.S.), 600 ministers, 200 organizations (seminaries, medical schools,convents, monasteries, mental-health agencies), has organizedreligion-psychiatry curriculums at three universities—Harvard, Loyola(Chicago) and Yeshiva (New York City).
This week the academy decided that it
had become global in scope, might as well
be so in name also: it dropped the word National from its title. Currentevidence of its supranationality: it is engaged in
helping the Archbishop of Canterbury to build
mild psychiatric principles into Church of England seminary curriculums,and is cooperating with Moslem leaders in exploring mental-health needsin their theoogical schools.
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