In reading about Jungian theory and psychotherapy (for the two are inextricably intertwined, far more so than in orthodox Freudian theory) I find myself, as an academic, rather than practitioner, beset by two conflicting feelings: on the one hand I am sometimes carried away by the profundity of the ideas, the realization that truly important human topics are dealt with: on the other I am jolted into disbelief, by the lack of critical evidence, by the looseness of the language and the ultimate irrefutability of the concepts. My suggestions for readings reflect this conflict.

Are more adolescent in-patient places needed? This has been the recommendation of a number of national and local working parties (Ministry of Health, 1964; Royal Medico-Psychological Association, 1965; Association for the Psychiatric Study of Adolescents, 1975; Court, 1976; Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976) and it would be echoed by many exasperated doctors and social workers up and down the country to whom the local adolescent unit seems always full or too selective. At present there are some 30–40 adolescent units scattered throughout the U.K. sometimes 50 miles apart, and they vary considerably in their treatment policies and therefore in the sort of young person they admit (e.g. see Warren, 1952; Turle, 1960; Allchin et al, 1967; Berg and Griffiths, 1970; Evans and Acton, 1972; Bruggen et al, 1973; Wardle, 1974; Framrose, 1975; Perinpanayagam, 1978; Wells et al, 1978; Bedford and Tennant, 1981). They have tended to become specialised in one direction or another in order to develop reasonably coherent management systems for their turbulent clientele, so that in any given area one or other category of disturbed adolescent is likely to be left out, leaving many professional workers more conscious of what is missing in residential services than what is being done.

To begin with, a few facts. Karl Jaspers' Allgemeine Psychopathologie (General Psychopathology) was first published in 1913 (1). The author was then barely 30 years of age, working as a physician in the psychiatric hospital at Heidelberg. Two years later he moved away from medicine towards first psychology and then philosophy, the field in which he was to emerge as one of the outstanding figures of the twentieth century. He continued, however, to retain an interest in psychopathology, revising and expanding his book in several later editions. Within the German-speaking world it was at once recognized by leading psychiatrists as a unique achievement, a mountainous landmark in the history of the subject. If Jaspers' reputation was to decline in Germany between the two world wars, this is attributable chiefly to his outspoken, uncompromising resistance to national socialism. Philosophy for him was a public as well as a private concern, and it was his courageous political stand which led Hannah Arendt to describe him as a contemporary successor of Immanuel Kant.

The reading matter one would recommend to medical undergraduate students clearly depends upon one's own view of the purposes and aims of teaching this group of students in departments of psychiatry. Aims may not be limited to psychiatry itself, and some teachers see the development of interviewing skills, self-awareness, and personal development as being at least as important as the teaching of more technical aspects of medicine such as the psychological aspects of physical disorders, recognition of psychiatric syndromes, psychiatric treatments, the use of the Mental Health Acts, and the organization of psychiatric services and their relation with other medical services.

Truancy is the term commonly used to describe unjustifiable absence from school. Persistent truancy occurs in approximately 1 per cent of primary school children. It increases considerably over the secondary school years to affect about 10 per cent of 15-year-olds. It is often associated with evidence of other antisocial activity. Educational attainment is inclined to be low. And children who truant often come from disadvantaged homes (Fogelman et al, 1980). Truancy in cases referred to child psychiatrists is usually just one manifestation of a conduct disorder characterized by a whole variety of antisocial behaviour (Hersov, 1960).