This overview sketches briefly the development of social psychiatry and its clinical application in institutions in modern times. The second and longest part addresses the family as the important social context for everybody throughout life. A systems view of family tasks and functioning is offered. In the third part, some of the highlights of psychiatric epidemiology are cited, and in the last section, community psychiatry is discussed - its failures and its potential. The need to establish interagency networks with continuing consultation and discussion concerning each patient is stressed, as well as the essentiality that our professions learn and cultivate general systems principles. Social psychiatry views the patient and the context in which he or she lives or works as a field in which one element affects all others in circular fashion.