The developments of psychiatry and psychotherapy in Western countries in the 1970s are analyzed, under the effect of the big changes of industrial societies characterized by an increase of psychological sufferings (caused also by socio-economical factors) and of services in the mental health market. In the first part of the paper some general trends are briefly discussed, in the second part some innovations and alternatives arisen as reactions to societal changes are listed, and in the third part of the paper there is a critique to various ways with which psychiatry and psychotherapy in Western countries have reacted to these changes. (This paper was presented at the "First Symposium on Psychotherapy in Socialist Countries" in Erfurt, East Germany [DDR], April 1973, and originally appeared in Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 1979, XIII, 3: 1-8).
Keywords: Western countries, industrial society, psychiatry, psychotherapy, history