Social Psychiatry

It is becoming more and more difficult to publish papers from international and world scientific meetings. The causes are partly financial; in addition the number of meetings held is so large that it is impossible to find the necessary time for the enormous amount of work involved in preparing and publishing these materials. Also the scientific and professional quality of these meetings is often poor as the same points of view as well as more or less the same papers, with only slight modifi­ cations, are usually presented. The educational system is also responsible since professionals are required to publish papers in order to get promoted in their pro­ fession and in their institutions. Overproduction of meetings and papers is often mentioned by many pro­ fessionals, but when we look at the professional activi­ ties of the critics of these meetings and papers, we can see that they also behave in the stereotypic way - they write papers, read them at congresses and publish in periodicals. The number of periodical publications of some medical branches - including psychiatry - is enor­ mous. In the light of such thoughts it seems opportune to evaluate the 8th World Congress of Social Psychiatry and the papers presented - the papers you are now holding in your hands. Although such an evaluation is a delicate and difficult task, I think it should be at least attempted in this Editorial.