THE ATTEMPT in this paper is to provide the physician with a viewpoint and a general approach to the psychiatric problems of childhood.1 The physician may regard much of what is outlined here as only common sense. This is probably true, for the endeavor in child psychiatry is often only the conscious application of common sense principles to the difficulties parents and children encounter in living with each other. In this field the development of a point of view regarding the individual person in his relationships with other persons is more important than the specific technics used in dealing with his emotional problems. In addition to an adequate consideration of his physical state, this involves greater attention to what goes on in the person's emotional life. It perhaps involves a greater stress on states of feeling than on thought processes. It tends to regard even intellectual processes, that is,