The problem of dealing with the individual considered to be dangerous is very real and not the least difficulty being the matter predicting the degree of dangerousness if one accepts that dangerousness can be predicted at all.

The recent technological explosion in the advancement of brain imaging, resulting in MRI, SPECT and PET scanning, has served to further blur the interfaces of neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry. As proposed by Reynolds (1990), the traditional divergence of classical neurological science and psychiatry, originating from Cullen's description of ‘neurosis’, is currently changing to convergence and in many areas coalescing.

During my psychiatric training to date I have been observed at work by medical students, psychiatric nurses and social workers, by video cameras and the members of family therapy teams, by consultant psychiatrists and others. All these experiences of being observed have been challenging and educative; probably I share them with most psychiatric trainees.

Computers themselves do very little other than make a rather soothing whirring noise and blink expectantly at you. It is the application software that you do work with, not the computer itself. Before we look at some of the common software applications, a brief word about files.

Gibraltar is one of the few remaining British colonies and the historical development of medical services on the Rock, named after its Moorish conqueror Gebel Tariq in AD 700, has been reviewed by Montegriffo (1978). The Rock provides a useful small community for studying the mental health of its population, being 1 × 3 miles in area and with a population of 29,166 (1986 census). The population has remained static for the last decade with the male/female ratio 15/14. There were 507 births, male/female ratio 254/253 and 290 deaths (154 males and 136 females, 1986 census). The age distribution has altered; the percentage over 65 years in 1970, 9.8% and in 1980, 11.2%.

It has been said that there is little likelihood of risk contact between people with learning disabilities in institutions and HIV infected people in the community and also that the shift of patients with learning disabilities from large institutions towards the community does not augur well for the prevention of HIV infection. There is little evidence for either of these views.