Selectivity and option for psychiatry.

The topic for this address did not seem to lend itself well to extemporaneous presentation and because of difficulty with my eyes which you must have noticed, I thought the best method of presenting my paper would be through the tape recorder. It not only reproduces the voice but it can be shut off at any point for spontaneous comments. The idea of recordings for psychiatric presentation occurred to me in 1935 while working with a case of depersonalization. It seemed extremely desirable to reproduce the patient’s dead, toneless voice. The Dictaphone Company kindly cooperated by constructing a specially designed instrument for this recording and it was presented at The New York Neurological Society,2 but its fidelity did not compare with the present improved tape recording. Terms such as option, discrimination, preference, selectivity, and segregation are generally in disfavor in the social scheme and philosophy of a democracy such as we live in. So at the outset, I wish to make tinequivocally clear my agreement with this philosophy and opposition to legalized segregation in the social scheme. The latter, I believe, is disadvantageous to those who are excluded and probably ultimately automatically harmful to those who are presumably privileged by the segregation of minority groups. Usually these excluded groups, such as sects, cults, etc., are most likely to be alien to the majority in some characteristic. Attached to the sedate red brick wall of the old New York Presbyterian Hospital on Madison Avenue was a bronze tablet which, as I remember, was inscribed: “For the sick without regard to race, creed or color.” As a youth I often stood before it, fascinated by its inspired and inspiring sentiment. Later, it became apparent how practicable and sound this principle could be as a social philosophy as well as in its clinical application. The drive of many forces threw my efforts