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While the Department of Mental Hygiene cannot undertake to meet all the mental health needs of the citizens, it should make the best possible use of all its own resources, and at the same time help others to make the most of theirs. To these ends it should* Give encouragement and assistance to persons engaged in prevention of mental disorders, without trying to operate such services.* Encourage and help persons engaged in the preservation of the human strengths that increase resistance to mental breakdown, without trying to operate such services.* Encourage and help persons outside the department who diagnose, treat and rehabilitate patients with mental disorders if these services meet the requirements of modern psychiatric treatment.* Continue operating hospitals at current level of bed capacity, clinics and related services for diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, moving toward levels of service in keeping with modern psychiatric standards and the growing population of the state.* Continue research and training within the Department and assist others in such programs outside the Department.

Development of a new paraprofessional training program, in a large psychiatric hospital, afforded the opportunity to study institutional resistance to change in detail. In addition to the varieties of resistance and their methods of production, resistance was examined in relation to the variables of project phase, self-awareness, degree of emotional investment, agency interdependency conflicts and counter-resistances. Creating a new, potentially encroaching discipline in mental health was the major threat perceived by personnel. While resistance encountered during program development is a formidable obstacle, it is also an essential concomitant to significant change and can be utilized to enhance its productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]