The establishing of a Royal College of Psychiatrists’ working party to consider the boundaries of psychiatry and religion, as suggested by Poole & Higgo, ^{Reference Poole and Higgo1} is indeed a pragmatic, constructive and, in our view, long overdue proposal.

It was in 1991 that our Patron, the Prince of Wales, first reminded the College that therapy involved body, mind and spirit. ² In that same year, the current President Dinesh Bhugra organised a meeting at the Institute of Psychiatry at which Bill Fulford cogently urged delegates to explore the limits of tolerance at the boundaries of psychiatric practice and religious belief. ^{Reference Fulford and Bhugra3}

Can the President please, in his last year of office, establish a working party which would consider these matters, consult widely and make recommendations relevant to the core clinical, research and educational objectives of the College? Such a working party will require the arms-length approach of transcultural psychiatry as well as a broad, multifaith perspective and astute leadership, fully sensitive to the concerns of religious and secular psychiatrists as well as service users and other health professionals.

If the World Psychiatric Association can be approaching an international consensus on this subject, ^{Reference Verhagen, van Praag, Lopez-Ibor, Cox and Moussaoui4} then surely the College can usefully now give a lead in Europe where these matters are particularly pressing.