The achievements of psychoanalytically oriented psychiatry with respect to psychotic, brain damaged and deprevied children are briefly discussed. New forms of hostility toward psychiatry are considered as a sign of the latter's growing esteem and an effort to challenge it into participation in social action, rather than isolating itself in its traditional curative attitude. It is suggested that psychiatry should resist the temptation to mix up points of view but carefully try to contribute — apart from its curative and preventive programs — to a general theory of human existence, the need for which is illustrated from a few practical points.