Few neurologists doubt that a significant proportion of the patients who consult them have a psychiatric disorder of at least moderate severity. It is well established that conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and cerebrovascular disease are associated with an increased vulnerability to anxiety disorders, affective disorders, and psychoses.1 The predisposition probably results both from the functional disability associated with the neurological condition and also from disturbance of intracerebral neurotransmitter pathways. In addition to those with established organic disease neurologists are consulted by a considerable number of somatising patients, those with little or no organic pathology but who have various neurological symptoms masking an underlying psychiatric disorder.2

The paper by Carson et al 3 on pages …