These comments were drafted by a Working Party from the Child Psychiatry and Mental Deficiency Sections.

Under the above title a one-day Conference was recently held under the auspices of three relatively new organizations: The University Hospitals Association; the Medical Academic Staff Committee of the BMA; and the Federation of Associations of Clinical Professors. The existence of these bodies themselves reflects the growing recognition that academic medicine does not have a strong enough voice in the world of medical politics, especially as regards the allocation of resources. The meeting was attended by Sir Henry Yellowlees and at the beginning also by Dr Gerard Vaughan. We should note with pleasure that we are the only Medical College with a Fellow who is a Minister in the Government.

The Clinical Tutors' Sub-Committee has received a number of requests for guidance about the accommodation which should be provided for medical staff in psychiatric hospitals and units. It is hoped that the following guidelines will help clinical tutors and others who are planning new psychiatric units or trying to improve facilities within existing buildings, and that it will be useful to College Approval Teams in considering whether accommodation provided for postgraduate training is adequate.

Our intention in this paper is to describe recent developments in the aims, content and organization of a psychotherapy course which began in 1965 (Millar et al 1968) and the factors which have influenced these developments.