The concept of psychiatry as a medical specialty applies to most countries today provided we keep in mind the varying fin plications of nosological entities in differ ent cultural settings. Accordingly, psychi atry in the Philippines must be viewed in a historical-geographical and cultural per spective. The Philippines is a country of about 27,000,000 people whose cultural evolution has been conditioned by at least three major influences: The original and long-standing Malayo-polynesian period was succeeded by 400 years of Spanish sovereignty, which in turn was followed by 40 years of Ameri can rule. This historical succession is fur ther complicated by the diversity of social habits from region to region within the country. Thus, there are more than 7,000 islands often with quite different cultural elaborations and linguistic patterns. It is not surprising, therefore, that a Filipino citizen may easily find himself a stranger in his own country as soon as he travels to a section other than that of his own regional origin. For many years, especially during the colonial period, the Filipino people have apparently been apathetic toward their lack of cultural unity and sense of national iden tification. Some of their basic Malayo-poly nesian traits were gradually buried in ob livion as western influences took precedence and increasingly dominated their lives, atti tudes, and mentality. Perhaps this is analo gous to the Freudian concept of introjection in that the image of the parent nation has gradually become idealized and self-sus taining. Now that the Philippines has sepa rated politically from its most recent parent and has assumed sovereign existence for