This paper describes a basic training course in cognitive therapy for trainee psychiatrists on the Sheffield rotational scheme. Cognitive therapy, as represented by the work of Beck and Ellis, has emerged over the past decade as a potent therapeutic tool, particularly in the treatment of depression. It is a structured, directive, short-term therapy aimed at eliciting and modifying the dysfunctional cognitions which are hypothesised to play a central role in initiating and maintaining emotional disorders.

A recent edition of the Bulletin contained a letter which was originally published in La Révolution Surréaliste 60 years ago. The letter was probably written by André Breton and was basically an attack on psychiatry as then practised in France and in particular on the process of involuntary admission. The letter appeared in the Bulletin under the title ‘An Historical Vignette: Surrealism and Anti-Psychiatry’. While there can be little doubt that the surrealists were antagonistic to psychiatry I would like to argue that a great deal of their work is of potential interest to psychiatrists. The surrealist movement was opposed to any form of rationalism. It was opposed to anything which could possibly limit the imagination and this was the source of its conflict with psychiatry. But surrealist art and literature was essentially an exploration of the bizarre, the irrational and the unconscious and these are subjects which are, of necessity, of importance to the psychiatrist and the psychotherapist.

A conference on the premenstrual syndrome (PMS) was held in September 1984 in Philadelphia, USA, jointly supported by the Ethics and Values in Science and Technology (EVIST) Section of the National Science Foundation, and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA). Twenty-two international research workers in the area of PMS met for a week's closed workshop discussing the scientific, legal and ethical issues raised by the present attention being given to the syndrome. PMS is now popular in the USA, with many private clinics and programmes being developed. Ten of the twenty-two invited participants were from medicine (six of these were psychiatrists, two general practitioners and four gynaecologists); the remainder were sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers, physiologists, philosophers, behavioural geneticists, psychologists, social workers, criminologists and bioethicists—an indicator of the diversity of the effects of and research into premenstrual syndrome. There were three UK participants—a general practitioner, a gynaecologist, and a psychiatrist. As the UK psychiatrist I felt that two in particular of the concensus opinions reached by such a diverse group would be of interest to readers of the Bulletin.

The working party was set up by the Third Collegiate Trainees Committee because dissatisfaction had often been expressed about psychiatric tutors at trainees' days around the country. It met regularly between September 1983 and April 1985. The aims were to survey trainees' satisfaction with their tutors, to invite tutors to comment on the difficulties of the job, to examine the structure of the system and to recommend changes if necessary.

Psychogeriatrics began to develop as a specialty within general psychiatry in the 1950's, but few pychiatrists became involved in establishing clinical services until a decade later. An ad hoc enquiry carried out by the DHSS in 1972 of Regional Hospital Boards revealed that 18 consultants then had a substantial (defined as five or more sessions) commitment to psychogeriatrics. At the same time a survey of psychogeriatric service provision revealed 31 units containing a total of 1,123 beds. Presumably, a number of units were being managed by general psychiatrists with less than a substantial commitment to old age psychiatry.