Resilience is a dynamic, multi-level, multi-systemic process of positive adaptation at the individual, family and community levels. Promoting resilience can be a cost-effective form of preventive and early intervention, offering significant health advantages for young people throughout their lives. Developing resiliency interventions for youth and their families in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in the context of the ongoing pandemic, is especially important given a lack of services and trained specialists, and poor levels of public spend on mental health, alongside marked and clustered psychosocial disadvantages and adverse childhood experiences. We propose a ‘hybrid’ model targeting 10- to 17 year-old children and their families, and options to engage through communities, schools and the family unit. These options will enhance individual and family resilience, and possibly buffer against adversity. The adaptations respect cultural and health beliefs, take account of structural drivers of inequalities and are suitable for LMICs.

Recent research estimated that an additional 195 suicides among 10- to 17-year-old youths occurred following the release of the television series 13 Reasons Why. There is an underrecognised aspect in this line of research that this effect represents a net effect based on different possible underlying patterns (e.g. +195/−0 or +395/−200).

Within recent years a great deal of attention has been paid to the question of chemical transmission of nervous impulses, and it has been definitely established by Dale and his co-workers (1, 2, 3) that acetyl choline is the transmitter in the case of the parasympathetic nervous system, and also in part of the sympathetic nervous system.

A number of drugs have been employed in an attempt to increase the mental capacity of oligophrenics. The effect of thiamine on learning demonstrated by Harrell (1943, 1946) led Rudolf (1949, 1950) to use this vitamin in the treatment of oligophrenia. Similarly, the early studies of Zimmermann and Ross (1944) on glutamic acid resulted in a large number of papers on its debatable effect in feeblemindedness (Zimmermann, Burgomeister and Putnam, 1946, 1947, 1948; McCulloch, 1950; Ellson, Fuller and Urmston, 1950; Quinn and Durling, 1950; Lafon, Faure and Bascou, 1952; Oldfelt, 1952). The results of celastrus paniculata on mental defectives have been described by us elsewhere (Morris, MacGillivray and Mathieson, 1953, 1954).

In a previous report (Cole and Glees, 1956) on methyl-phenidate (Ritalin) as an antagonist to reserpine (Serpasil) in monkeys we referred to a similar effect produced by amphetamine. Following up this work we have now studied and compared the effects of methyl-phenidate and amphetamine when given separately without reserpine to normal and leucotomized monkeys.

In view of the reports of Mendigutia et al. (6), Delay et al. (3), Kamphausen (5), Harenko et al. (4), Alleva (1), that haloperidol was very effective in controlling manic states, it was decided to treat a number of cases with this diagnosis using this new preparation.

In round figures there are 11,000 epileptics in public mental hospitals, 3,000-4,000 in institutions for mental defectives, just under 4,000, who are neither insane nor mentally defective, in colonies and residential schools, and an unknown number, probably a considerable one, in public assistance hospitals and institutions. How many are living in the community is not known.

Prognosis in psychiatry, and particularly in schizophrenia, is in a somewhat chaotic condition. The dearth of literature concerning prognostic landmarks is convincing evidence as to the truth of this assertion. For many years an unadulterated pessimistic outlook was almost a psychiatric boast. While such an attitude is no longer general, there still tends to be a more or less rigid dependence of prognosis upon diagnosis. Sometimes, and perhaps often, this dependence is so slavish that in a given case a favourable result is interpreted as a sure signal for diagnostic revision.

During the last few years at Rainhill Mental Hospital, an investigation has been carried out into the clinical and pathological features of dementia præcox in its so-called acute or malignant form. A description of the characteristic clinical features and of the gross morbid anatomy was presented in a previous article in this Journal (4), but it may be of advantage to re-state the conclusions arrived at in this preliminary inquiry.

The technique of electroencephalography has become to neurophysiology what the microscope is to histology. It is probable that by this technique neurophysiologists will achieve a comprehensive knowledge of the functional organization of the brain. While the EEG has been used most successfully for this type of research, it has also been applied with no less enthusiasm to clinical problems of neurology and psychiatry. In certain cerebral disorders, for example epilepsy, where knowledge had already made considerable advance, the EEG technique was immediately found to have application. But in what may be called “the problems of function” provided by the main psychiatric reactions of schizophrenia and manic-depression, and in relation to individual differences of temperament, intelligence and personality, in all these the EEG has so far proved of little value.

Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in the subject of hypoparathyroidism and it has become increasingly clear that psychiatric symptoms may frequently be found in patients with hypoparathyroidism, even where no evidence of tetany is present. It is significant that in a survey, in the Cardiff area, of 82 patients who had had a thyroidectomy, Davis et al. (1961) found that mental symptoms (defined as a feeling of uneasiness, tension and anxiety, sometimes with attacks of panic, often with depression) occurred in 66 per cent. of 26 patients whose plasma calcium was below 9·3 mgms/cent, in 51 per cent. of 31 patients whose plasma calcium lay between 9·3 and 9·8 mgms./cent. and in 35 per cent. of 23 patients whose plasma calcium was above 9 · 8 mgms./cent. They estimated that at least 24 per cent. of the patients showed partial parathyroid insufficiency, and that this apparently accounted for many minor but disabling symptoms, particularly depression and lassitude. They found that often these symptoms could be cured by the administration of calcium.

Paintings and drawings of emotionally and mentally disturbed persons have been the subject of many psychological and psychiatric investigations. The psychological evaluation of graphic art can probably be considered as the oldest “projective” technique. Paintings and drawings have been systematically studied by psychologists and psychiatrists from three different aspects: 1, As indicators of the developmental stage reached in perceptual, motor and intellectual functions (Goodenough, 1926; Graewe, 1932; Bender, 1938; Gesell and Ames, 1946).

Labelling specific psychiatric concerns as ‘niche’ topics relegated to specialty journals obstructs high-quality research and clinical care for these issues. Despite their severity, eating disorders are under-represented in high-impact journals, underfunded, and under-addressed in psychiatric training. We provide recommendations to stimulate broad knowledge dissemination for under-acknowledged, yet severe, psychiatric disorders.