Table of Contents


Introduction
The Story of Gap
Postwar Challenge
Gap is Organized
Basis for Action
 No Auditors Needed
APA Reforms
Light on the Law
Psychiatry and Socials Issues
Child Psychiatry
Brain Surgery
International Relations
Federal Agencies
Medical Education
Industry
How Reports are Processed
Influence Abroad
Gap Symposia
Statements on Current Issues
Mental Health Campaign
The Essence of Gap
The Attack on Gap
A Small Striking Committee
The Financial History of Gap

Child Psychiatry

The Committee on Child Psychiatry issued several reports that were eagerly studied by people working with emotionally disturbed children.  One of the most widely distributed GAP reports was No. 18,  Promotion of Mental Health in the Primary and Secondary Schools:  An Evaluation of Four Projects  (January 1951), formulated by the Committee on Preventive Psychiatry after a careful study of four demonstration projects (in Iowa, Delaware, New Jersey, and Ontario) which were  oriented towards influencing the mental health of the child through the child's direct experience in the classroom.

Brain Surgery

During the period when an over-enthusiasm for prefrontal lobotomies was resulting in dangerously indiscriminate resort to such operations, the GAP Committee on Research, responding to requests from governmental authorities, undertook to prepare a plan for a controlled study leading to an evaluation of the relatively new and radical therapeutic technique.  Its recommendations, embodies in GAP Report No. 6,  Research on Pre-frontal Lobotomy  (June 1948) were gratefully accepted by the National Advisory Mental Health Council.  In January, 1954, the Committee on Psychopathology issued a report entitled  Collaborative Research in Psychopathology,  a useful guide for interdisciplinary investigation.

International Relations

The Committee on International Relations formulated reports on areas where psychiatry could profitably contribute to the problems of easing tensions between nations and people.  Its latest report,  Working Abroad,  just published, contains many helpful hints to American personnel in overseas service on how to adapt to the stresses of living and working among people of differing cultural and environmental backgrounds.  Mental health aspects in this field have been grossly neglected.  As noted in the committee report, there are more than 100,000 American citizens working abroad on a full-time basis for international organizations, and probably another 30,000 who are in overseas service on short-time private or governmental business--not to mention wives and children accompanying such personnel, or the more than one million American troops serving in posts outside United States boundaries.

Federal Agencies

The Committee on Cooperation with Governmental (Federal) Agencies has been an unofficial but very valuable advisory resource on psychiatry for the military establishments, the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Civil Defense Administration, the State Department, and others.

During the recent period sometimes called  the McCarthyite era,  when many excesses occurred in hounding suspected  security risks  out of government employment, often to the unjust ruin of personal reputation and widespread demoralization in public service, this GAP committee was asked to help clarify the problem of homosexuality.  The drive against suspected homosexuals in federal employ was then almost as intense as that against  political subversives.   The GAP committee did conduct a study of the problem, and formulated a report published in January, 1955, entitled  Homosexuality, with Particular Emphasis on This Problem in Governmental Agencies.   The report's preamble stated:

Medical Education

The GAP Committee on Medical Education has exerted a significant influence not only in strengthening psychiatry departments in medical schools, but in improving general curricula in these schools, as well as stimulating better training of psychiatric residents.  The Committee on the College Student has become the main source of authoritative information regarding problems of mental health on the American campus.

Industry

The Committee on Psychiatry in Industry has formulated several reports on industrial mental health.  The latest,  The Person with Epilepsy at Work  (GAP Report No. 36, February 1957) provides, in effect, a succinct handbook on the subject, covering such topics as personality factors in epileptics; employment procedures; epilepsy and compensation laws; placement; and the plant physician's function, with a series of recommendations for more effective employment practices.

How Reports Are Processed

Other GAP reports have emanated from the committees on the Family, Psychiatric Nursing, and Public Education.

It is the policy for each GAP committee--there are presently twenty-one--to choose a single subject for study.  The topic may be investigated for years, with no report resulting.  If the committee comes to a point where it feels a report may be a useful contribution to the literature, it works up a draft.  When this is finished, it is distributed among the entire GAP membership, in the form of a circular letter, for evaluation, criticism, and other comment.  If the responses are, on the whole, favorable, the committee then revises the draft report on the basis of the suggestions and criticisms received from the general membership.  (At times, the initial response is so negative that the report is abandoned.)  The revised report is then submitted to a board of three referees, appointed by the GAP president.  Not until their criticisms and recommendations have been incorporated into the report is the final version ready for publication.

Influence Abroad

GAP reports have exerted an influence not only in the United States, but throughout the world.  They are routinely distributed by the World Federation for Mental Health among affiliate governmental and voluntary agencies in forty-two countries.  (GAP itself is an affiliate of the WFMH).  Several years ago, the following tribute was tendered to GAP by Dr. John R. Rees, the noted British psychiatrist who is director-general of the WFMH and a frequent attendant at GAP meetings:

I can assure you that the work you have done and the leadership you have given is well known in all parts of the world.  One no longer needs to interpret the meaning of the letter's "GAP" to people, whether it be at the Assembly of the World Health Organization or amongst our colleagues in many countries with which we in the World Mental Health Federation have to deal...

You have given greater support to the Federation than any other single group of professional people in the world, and we always regard GAP as being one of the Federation's scientific consciences....  The world as a whole needs your wisdom and your close cooperation....

In his presidential address before the Royal Society of Medicine's section on psychiatry, Dr. Rees urged the creation of a British equivalent of GAP, characterizing this group as  an extremely lively and stimulating body, which has provided a post-postgraduate experience for its members, and has clarified and pulled together a great many concepts which were very difficult, both on the clinical and organization side.

GAP Symposia

Aside from its reports, GAP from time to time publishes the proceedings of symposia which have been a regular feature of its semi-annual meetings.  These symposia, carefully prepared by one or another GAP committee, revolve around topics of current importance, with both members and invited experts participating, and are followed by discussion from the floor.  To date, five of these GAP symposia have been published, namely:

1. Consideration regarding the Loyalty Oath as a Manifestation of Current Social Tension and Anxiety  (October 1954).
   
2. Illustrative Strategies for Research on Psychopathology in Mental Health  (June 1956).
   
3. Factors Used to Increase the Sensitivity of Individuals to Forceful Indoctrination:  Observations and Experiments  (December 1956).
   
4. Methods of Forceful Indoctrination:  Observations and Interviews  (July 1957).
   
5. Some Considerations of Early Attempts in Cooperation between Religion and Psychiatry: (March 1958).