Early interventions aiming at prevention from future psychopathology are critically evaluated. These interventions include: genetic psychiatric counselling, family planning, improvement of the physical health of the population, prenatal care, intervention in childhood, improvement of the physical health of the child, improvement of the home environment and improvement of the school environment. Although concrete evidence about the effectiveness of many of the above methods is lacking, they are nevertheless worth applying because on an individual basis they often contribute to the alleviation of human suffering. It is pointed out that early preventive interventions are particularly indicated in predisposed individuals (e.g. persons with hereditary predisposition for schizophrenia who must be protected from perinatal complications in order to be prevented from future development of this illness) or high-risk groups (e.g. the siblings of ‘battered’ children who have a greater probability of being abused by their parents, or ‘battered’ children who, when becoming parents, have a raised probability of abusing their own ch
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