The group of European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) was formed in 1971 and became a Standing Committee of the European Science Foundation (ESF) in 1975. EMRC is an association of medical research councils or equivalent organizations in Western Europe. The National Institutes of Health, the Israel Academy of Sciences, and the European Office of WHO are associated with EMRC and take an active part in its activities. The main aims of EMRC are to exchange information on the research policies pursued by its member organizations and to initiate and stimulate inter national cooperation in biomedical research. Since this research is highly international in itself, EMRC concentrates its activities on furthering international collaboration in those fields where it can play a significant role as a complement of existing channels. Mental illness research has been judged by EMRC to fulfill these criteria. After a survey of the activities of the member organizations in mental illness research, EMRC decided in 1978 to set up a study group to analyze areas where EMRC could contribute. As a result of the work of the study group, five workshops have been arranged to define present knowledge in some specific areas and to delineate research needs. The present volume contains the proceedings of the fifth workshop, held in 1987 and dealing with interactions between mental and physical illness. EMRC hopes that this volume will contribute both to intensified research and to research cooperation on mental illnesses."

The group of European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) was formed in 1971 by the medical research councils or equivalent organizations in Western Europe and became a Standing Committee of the European Science Foundation in 1975. The aims of the EMRC are to exchange information on research policies and to initiate and stimulate international cooperation in biomedical research. Research on mental illness is one of the areas of special im portance identified by the EMRC. Having surveyed the activities of its member organizations in mental illness research the EMRC decided in 1978 to set up a study group in order to promote European collaboration on research needed in this field. It was decided that emphasis should be on research on treatment and on the evaluation of treatment. The group prepared a proposal to the EMRC which suggested organizing small workshops with the participation of two or three research workers from each member country as well as from organizations with observer status in the EMRC such as they WHO and the National Institutes of Health in the United States. The members of the Study Group nominated by the EMRC are at present Professors E. Anttinen (Finland), R. Daly (Ireland), T. Helgason (Iceland; chairman), H. Hippius (Federal Republic of Germany), and E. A. Sand (Belgium), and Dr. R. Sadoun (France)."

First published in 1983, this book is a review of psychiatric treatment by experts in the field from the member countries of the European Medical Research Councils, organized by the European Science Foundation. The volume starts by enumerating the various methods for evaluating psychiatric treatment or evaluating the results of treating specific syndromes, and continues with a chapter on the aims of psychiatric treatment and three on methods of classification of mental diseases. The rest of the book deals with evaluation of treatment, starting with special problems encountered in the difficult areas of evaluation of psychotherapy and social therapeutic methods. There are five chapters on various rating scales and methods and one chapter each on psychophysiological and biochemical criteria in the evaluation of treatment. The last contribution to the book is on ethical and practical problems in theraputic research.

In this 1985 text organizational, patient and public health aspects of long-term treatment of functional psychoses are described and areas are pinpointed where more information is required. The workshop on which the volume is based was arranged by the European Medical Research Councils and was attended by leading workers from a number of European countries. Accounts of the organization of and alternatives to hospitals and of the effects of closing mental hospitals are followed by discussions of psychotherapy, milieu-therapy and pharmacotherapy, neuroleptic, lithium and antidepressive medication. The care of schizophrenics, of children and of the aged are discussed. In all these areas the book draws attention to areas of research or aspects of long-term treatment which need further probing.