Social psychiatry

Social psychiatry is a new, little-known branch of psychiatry, which has as its subject the study and explanation of the phenomena of social life from a psychiatric point of view. This does not mean, however, that it has no points of contact with clinical psychiatry. Kraepelin, who was the first to speak of social psychiatry, started from the mentally ill person, studying the question of the effect on the person's psyche of his alienation from the natural environment and from the conditions of life with which he has been fused in body and soul for many years. In this particular case of social psychiatry, Kraepelin notes that we are opening the door to a vast new discipline, the full extent and significance of which we can only anticipate rather than know. Indeed, Kraepelin's premonition that we are dealing in social psychiatry with a very important and extensive branch of human knowledge that will help us solve the problems of social life soon proved true. The role of social psychiatry in modern life is well established, and without it is almost impossible to solve the problems of social life.