Leisure: A Problem for Preventive Psychiatry
WERNER M. MENDEL M.D.1
1 Professor of Psychiatry, University of Southern California School of Medicine, 1934 Hospital Pl., Los Angeles, Calif. 90033
The increased amount of leisure created by our shrinking work week has become a frantic time leading to psychological depression. Our work-oriented ethic, which is anti-pleasure, anti-leisure, and anti-laughter, is perpetuated by our child-rearing practices and educational systems. Preventive psychiatry requires that we change these practices and systems now to prevent an epidemic of depression in the next two decades.
