The stability of sleep was examined in two kinds of induced insomnia, namely after caffeine administration and after hypnotic drug withdrawal. The duration of each episode of any one sleep stage or any episode of intervening wakefulness plus drowsiness was determined.

After caffeine mere was an increase in longer episodes of intervening wakefulness plus drowsiness, but no significant change in the episode duration of any of the sleep stages. In the case of drug withdrawal there was no change in the episode duration of intervening wakefulness plus drowsiness, but there was a significant shortening of episode duration in sleep stages 2 and 3 +4, with a similar trend for REM sleep episodes.

Caffeine ‘insomnia’ thus seems characterized by increased stability of wakefulness, and hypnotic withdrawal ‘insomnia’ by decreased stability of sleep. The type of analysis undertaken in this study could increase understanding of other types of insomnia.

Previous research suggests, though by no means consistently, that schizophrenic patients may be less able than normals to predict the speech of other people, and that schizophrenic speech is less predictable than normal speech. The present experiment tests these two suggestions and also a third possibility, that the difference between schizophrenic and normal speech is less marked for schizophrenics asked to make the predictions than for normals. Twelve schizophrenic patients recently admitted to hospital, and twelve comparable, psychiatrically normal, orthopaedic patients, were asked to predict both schizophrenic and normal speech, using Cloze Procedure, under both fourth-word and fifth-word deletion. The first hypothesis was upheld, but the second and third received only very limited support. The findings are discussed in the light of previous work, and suggestions are made for future research.

It is common clinical knowledge that parents of schizophrenic patients show an apparent disability to comprehend their children's illness. They often minimize its severity or show complete lack of insight and deny gross psycho-pathological symptoms. The concept of illness by parents of schizophrenic patients is the subject of the present investigation. Investigations of such attitudes are not common in the literature. They are impeded by the lack of appropriate objective techniques of measurement. The Repertory Grid method (Kelly, 1955) provides a flexible and sensitive instrument for investigation of single subjects. According to Kelly's theory, each person has his own unique way of construing. He evaluates a set of elements within his range of comprehension, using Personal Constructs in a network of interrelationships. Difficulties occur, however, when groups of people are to be compared. One can compare groups by the way they use Constructs to evaluate a set of Elements; but one must ensure not only that the Elements are within the range of convenience of all subjects of the group but also that Constructs used by the group occupy some significant place in the construct system of each person of the group. The work reported in this paper was performed in two distinct phases.

The subject of impotence has hardly been approached in the Arab countries though sexual dysfunction of a functional nature is of no less importance there than elsewhere.

Work in England (Kaldegg, 1956) and America (Wechsler, 1958; and Jones and Parsons, 1972) has suggested that heavy drinking, while in the later stages leading to all-round intellectual deterioration, in the early stages frequently causes deficits in visual/spatial and visual/motor co-ordination and visual memory. Kleinknecht and Goldstein (1972) suggest two general areas of deficit, inability in abstract reasoning and problem solving, and inability in tasks involving speed and perceptual/motor co-ordination. These functions are known to deteriorate with age and so deficits due to alcohol look like premature senescence of intellectual and psychological processes.

The following enquiries into the careers of trainee psychiatrists were undertaken as part of a personal attempt to contact all doctors working in psychiatry in sub-consultant grades in the South-Western Region. The original intention was to establish a register of trainees in the Region, which is geographically large, extending from Gloucester down to the furthermost parts of Cornwall. The academic centre has traditionally been in Bristol, with its University Medical School and Professorial Department of Mental Health. The Regional Clinical Tutor in Psychiatry organizes regular post-graduate meetings and courses, and some of these take place throughout the Region. The Avon Membership Course, now in its fourth term, takes place on Friday afternoons in Bristol during University term time, providing a two-year theoretical framework for trainees preparing for the M.R.C.Psych. The meetings are traditionally open to all interested persons from any discipline, but trainees working at a distance from Bristol find it difficult to attend this course.

The patient undergoing rehabilitation is expected to do more than passively accept care and treatment. He is also expected to learn. The doctor or nurse purveying rehabilitation finds that the job increasingly includes teaching as well as treating patients. Most but not all of the transactions between teachers and taught are conducted by means of the spoken word. The extent to which messages are conveyed intact by this means (and without this no learning will occur) will depend among other things upon the speaker's clarity of expression and the listener's ability to understand.

In this study we have compared certain personality variables in alcoholic individuals, depressed subjects and in controls.

A group of 46 bipolar probands and their first degree relatives were studied. A high rate of affective disorder (19.6 per cent) was found, including both unipolar (13.2 per cent) and bipolar (6.4 per cent) types, with females predominating (3: 1). The presence of four father-son pairs suffering from affective disorder made the hypothesis of X-linked dominance untenable. Results compatible with polygenic inheritance were found, using both Slater's and Falconer's methods. There was no evidence for assortative mating or for increased total number of females (both well and ill) among first degree relatives. The probands and affectively ill first degree relatives who have died show an alarmingly high rate of suicide (46 per cent). Other forms of mental disorder, including alcoholism, were no more common than in the rest of the community.

In a previous study, macrocytosis was found in non-anaemic mentally retarded epileptic patients treated with anticonvulsants, and a direct relationship was found between drug dose and the degree of macrocytosis, when the sole anticonvulsant given was phenobarbitone (Eastham and Jancar, 1970a and b). An attempt to use the measurement of red cell size to detect folate deficiency during anticonvulsant therapy before the development of overt anaemia was unsuccessful. Following these findings, yeast tablets were given as a natural source of folate to both epileptic and non-epileptic mentally retarded patients, and preliminary results showed that folate deficiency associated with long-term anticonvulsant therapy could be corrected within three months, without increasing either the frequency or the severity of convulsions in epileptic patients (Eastham and Jancar, 1971). Supplementary yeast tablets were therefore given routinely to all epileptic patients on anticonvulsant therapy in the hospital; there were no side effects from this medication.

In 1972 three old hospitals were closed and patients transferred to a new hospital for the mentally handicapped. Four to six weeks before transfer, disturbed and a sample of non-disturbed patients were rated on a selected scale; they were again rated four to six weeks after transfer. The disturbed patients numbered 39 per cent of the total and both men and women shared a significant improvement, though the men did not improve to the same extent as the women. There was also a significant improvement among the non-disturbed patients, though this did not apply to the epileptic patients.