Radio Psychiatry and Community Mental Health Hospital and Community Psychiatry July 1992 Vol. 43 No. 7 739 then written and signed by both pa- tients. The religious issue was discussed in the third session, in which it was revealed that the compulsion to talk about religious issues was a direct result of the patient’s illness. She stated that the voices said, “If you don’t witness, you will go to hell,” and “You have a right to talk to others about God.” She became un- able to control herself when options were suggested and refused to con- tinue, stating, “I am not signing any- thing that says I can’t talk about God!” At this point the time allotted for the session was over. No other sessions were scheduled because the patients’ assessment period in the transitional housing was over. During the follow-up interview completed shortly thereafter, while the patients were still in the transi- tional setting, we were pleased to discover that they had continued the process for establishing the first two rules and had come to an agreement on the religion issue. They had inter- nalized at least some of the interest- based mediation process. In addition, the patients reported that the ses- sions helped them understand how their roommate felt about the issues that had caused the conflict and that the increased level of understanding helped them control their impulses. One patient stated, “No one had ever talked to me about how I affected them.” Results with these patients sug- gest that an interest-based approach to solving conflicts has therapeutic value. Patients may gain insights about . how their behavior affects others and about their own feelings. Conclusions It is commonly assumed that parties in mediation must be “rational.” This case presents evidence that high-functioning psychotic patients can successfully use mediation dur- ing lucid periods when sufficient support is available. Patients’ new insights about how their behavior affects others suggest that interest- based mediation may have therapeu- tic value, in addition to its efficacy in resolving conflicts. The case raises questions, which remain to be cx- ploned, about the generalization of. successful outcomes to other situations. Acknowledgments The authors thank Alan King, Ph.D., andJohn Tyler, Ph.D., for helpful corn- ments. Frederick W. Hickling, D.M., M.R.C.Psych. The use of radio programs in com- munity mental health has become popular in recent years. Cave (1) re- ported that the first radio psychiatry program in the U.S. was established in California in 1976. In 1981 Rice (2) commented on the growing pop- ulanity of radio psychiatry programs in the United States and elsewhere. Ruben (3) described a nationally broadcast radio call-in show that began airing on NBC Radio from New York in 1982. Some authors have criticized radio psychiatry talk shows as shallow, sen- sationalistic, and irresponsible (4). Both the American Psychiatric As- sociation (5) and the American Psy- chological Ass iciation (6) have pub- lished ethical guidelines for psychia- tnists and psychologists working with the communications media. The guidelines caution that there should be no attempt to make a diag- nosis or to treat on the air. Radio psychiatrists should not cite their own cases, and most important, Dr, Hickling is medical director of Psychotherapy Associates, 23 Connolley Avenue, Kingston 4, J amaica, and associate lecturer in psychiatry at the University of the West Indies in Kingston. References 1. Moore C: The Mediation Process. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1986 2. Fairweather GW (ed): The Fairweather Lodge: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospec- tive. San Francisco,Jossey-Bass, 1980 3. Beard JH, Propst RN, MalarnUd TJ: The Fountain House model of psychiatric re- habilitation. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal 5:47-53, 1982 should not exploit the caller for media purposes. However, most authors agree that call-in radio psy- chiatry programs can have a positive psychoeducational effect on listeners. This paperdescnibes acall-in radio show about mental health that aired in Jamaica between 1975 and 1984 and summarizes the demographic characteristics and problems pre- sented by persons who called or wrote to the show over a four-year period. The call-in program In October 1975 the author estab- lished a radio psychiatry call-in pro- gram in cooperation with the Ja- maica Broadcasting Corporation. The 45-minute program was broad- cast once a week. The radio psychia- tnist received telephone calls from per- sons all oven the island and answered questions raised in letters from lis- teners who did not have access to a telephone. The psychiatrist advised listeners about the possible causes of the problems they described, dis- cussed social, psychological, and psy- chiatric themes raised by callers, and referred callers to agencies on thera- pists where they could obtain help. Listeners’ problems A total of 150 radio psychiatry pro- grams that aired between March 1980 and the end of February 1984 were tape recorded and studied. A total of367 calls and 17 1 letters were