In 1929, with his newly earned degree of Bachelor of Medicine from Chulalongkorn University School of Medicine in Bangkok, PHON entered government service in the Department of Health. Posted from 1930 to 1934 as Provincial Medical Officer at Sakolnakorn in the northeast, he developed a particular interest in the mentally ill. This interest became a career with his assignment, in 1935, as Assistant Director of the one mental hospital in Thailand—at Thonburi near Bangkok.

The history of institutionalized care for the mentally ill in Thailand dates from November 1, 1889 when, during the reign of King Chulalongkorn, a group of 30 mental patients were placed together in a small building situated on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River in the Klong Sarn District of Thonburi. During this "golden era" of modern Thai history, the Siriraj, Burabha and Banglak Hospitals also were built.

In those early days the mental asylum at Thonburi looked more like a prison than a hospital. The "inmates" were locked in small barred rooms and chained or knocked unconscious when they became violent. Sometimes they were "treated" by administration of holy water, snuff or native medicine. Similar to attitudes and practices in Western countries when "insane asylums" were first instituted, patients were objects of fear and prejudice. Superstitious people believed that the mentally ill were under the influence of devils and ghosts. Those not in the asylum were treated like slaves or animals, whipped and even left without care to die.

Over the next decade the number of patients in the mental asylum increased rapidly, severely overcrowding the limited facilities. In 1910 Dr. H. C. Hyed, the Health Officer of Bangkok, urged improvement of conditions. As a result of his report, the government bought 18 acres from the Somdej Chao Phraya family and others in the south Klong Sarn District and the new Hospital for the Insane was completed to which patients were admitted in September 1912. Dr. Morden Carthew, Dr. Hyed's English assistant, was appointed director. Though Dr. Carthew was neither a psychiatrist nor familiar with treatment for the mentally ill, he understood the psychological importance of pleasant, quiet surroundings and planned the hospital grounds to resemble a forest with trees and flowers to put patients' minds at peace and reduce their tension. Treatment of patients also was radically changed; no longer simply restrained from harming others, patients were unchained and given more attention, and some were removed from barred rooms. By 1915 physicians were sent occasionally from the Medical School to help with treatment.

In 1925 Luang Vichien Patayakom became the first Thai physician to be director. A year later he was sent to the United States to specialize in psychiatric treatment. Shortly after his return in 1928 Dr. Luang changed the name of the institution to The Mental Hospital. He also sought, by educational propaganda, to remove the stigma regarding mental ailments and took every opportunity to explain mental illness to teachers and nurses to erase their prejudice. Three new buildings were erected in 1925-1929 giving the hospital a total bed capacity of 580. The medical staff was augmented in 1934 by six part-time physicians from the Medical School and in 1935 by the appointment of PHON as Assistant Director. Aware after his training abroad of the deficiencies in the hospital's care of patients, Luang arranged soon after PHON’s appointment to send his young assistant on a five-month study tour to observe work for the mentally ill in Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan.

An episode that began during his visit to Japan illustrates young PHON’s character. Genevieve Caulfield, an American woman working there with the blind, was introduced to PHON in Tokyo where she was questioning the few Thai visitors regarding care of the blind in their country. Most Thais she met knew nothing about the blind or believed there were none in Thailand. Although not himself acquainted with the problem, PHON realistically presumed that care for the blind was as lacking as it was for the mentally ill and encouraged Miss Caulfield to visit Thailand later that year to study possibilities of starting educational work there. He invited her and her adopted Japanese daughter to spend a month with him and his wife in their modest home on the premises of The Mental Hospital, and during their visit took them around to government offices and gave them all the time he could spare. When Miss Caulfield and her daughter returned to Bangkok in 1938 to start work, PHON was at the station to greet them.

"Without his understanding and untiring effort," Miss Caulfield has written, she could not have started her school for the blind nor organized the foundation necessary to finance and run it. After serving as secretary of the foundation for one year and seeing the program launched, PHON withdrew to give full time to his own work. At the outbreak of war in 1941, however, he answered Miss Caulfield's appeal and was at the School for the Blind the same day to assure her he would personally take responsibility for the safe return of the blind students to their homes, some in the distant north of the country, should the need arise.

The Mental Hospital to which PHON returned after his study tour in 1935 consisted of a few crowded buildings on expansive grounds, where most patients were behind bars and treatment was minimal due to lack of staff. Except for the Director, none of the staff had training in psychiatry. The demonstrated concern of the Director and Dr. PHON for the patients, however, encouraged others to follow their example of handling them with gentleness and understanding.

In 1936 the crowding was somewhat alleviated by the donation of funds for construction of a new 40-bed building. Pressure on the institution was further relieved in 1937 with establishment of a second mental hospital at Surat Thani in the south and, in 1938, with the opening of a third mental hospital at Lampang in the north. During these years the number of patients at The Mental Hospital at Thonburi increased to 1,100, requiring the establishment, in 1941, of a fourth mental institution, the Srithanya Hospital, at Nondhaburi some 15 kilometers from Bangkok.

In 1939 PHON was sent on a government study grant to the United States for six mouths training. Specializing in mental hygiene and psychiatry at the University of Colorado and training at Denver Psychopathic Hospital, he earned a Certificate of Psychiatry. He then continued his study for 12 months at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Upon his return PHON was appointed Chief of the Life Welfare Division in the Department of Public Welfare in the Ministry of Interior. His important work in the one year he held this position was to found orphanage schools with mental hygiene services. In 1942 PHON succeeded Luang as Director of The Mental Hospital at Thonburi and was concurrently named Director of the new Division of Mental Hospitals under the Department of Medical Services in the Ministry of Health. Dr. Luang's great contribution was to introduce the practice of mental hygiene to Thailand and make a beginning in educating the public to some understanding of mental illness. It remained for his successor to achieve technical progress in the treatment of mental patients and to win inclusion of mental hygiene and the treatment of mental illness in the curriculum of medical schools and in the training of nurses and teachers.

In December 1941 Thailand was overrun by Japan and, after a short resistance, signed a treaty with the aggressor. Although many of his contemporaries left government service PHON stayed with his work. Since funds were short, his hopes for physical improvement of facilities for the mentally ill had temporarily to be set aside. To make better use of existing facilities he organized his four assistants and nursing staff at The Mental Hospital into a small study group and concentrated on putting into practice the techniques and knowledge he had acquired abroad. The appearance and atmosphere of the wards changed from places of confinement to real hospital wards. Modern psychiatric treatment was introduced, including physical therapy. "We spent those years," he later reminisced, "training ourselves, pulling down bars and rendering our hospital as modern and efficient as poor equipment and eager minds and hearts could make it."

In 1943 PHON initiated the Annual Psychiatric Meeting of the Division of Mental Hospitals with a discussion on the feeble-minded. He also instituted a Weekly Journal Club and clinical conferences which, like the Annual Psychiatric Meeting, have continued to the present.

In the following two years funds became available for reconstruction of several buildings and the addition of new ones. All of the hospital buildings were given names of flowers or names with "happy meanings." A pool and small hill on the grounds were turned into a beautiful park. Although the Director's house was old and in need of repair, PHON refused to have money spent on it, insisting that the welfare of patients and staff come first.

When the war ended in the fall of 1945, PHON was ready with his small cadre of doctors and nurses to move forward on expansion of mental health services. Finding necessary funds was a constant challenge, but by persistence he won support for one program, then another. Always planning for his junior staff and arranging for their professional future he sent both doctors and nurses abroad for psychiatric training and saw to it that job assignments were waiting on their return.

One of his most difficult struggles was the introduction of courses in psychiatry into the medical schools of Thailand. For 15 years he tried unsuccessfully to persuade medical university authorities to give him lecture hours on this important subject. Finally, in 1957, he was told he could give a course if he could wangle some hours from any one of the professors. His friend, the Professor of Anatomy, yielded some of his own teaching time. In these hard-won hours PHON first stressed to his students how important the study of anatomy was for any doctor. Then, suggesting that the anatomy and working of the human brain might be even more significant than that of the inanimate body, he made his point that "the whole person must be treated. His perseverance triumphed as year by year more hours on mental hygiene and the treatment of mental illness were added to the medical schools' curriculum.

At the same time PHON continued to press forward with the program for improved physical facilities that was deferred during the war. In 1946 a workshop and laboratory were built at The Mental Hospital and several old buildings were reconstructed. A fifth mental hospital was opened at Ubol in the northeast and in 1947 the Lampang hospital serving northern Thailand was moved to larger quarters in Chiengmai. In 1948, after three years of continuous request, the Budget Bureau of the Ministry of Finance granted funds for construction at the Thonburi Mental Hospital of an outpatient building, marking a new era of recognition by government and the public of the role of a mental hospital. In 1949 and 1950 more building expansion at Thonburi was made possible through private donations and proceeds from a movie of the King's visit to the south. Separate residential quarters for doctors and interns were constructed, and the Director's house was at last repaired.

Important assistance for PHON’s work came in the fall of 1951 when Dr. C. H. Gundry was assigned by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) to conduct a short-term investigative study of mental health services in Thailand. PHON was assigned to work with the visiting specialist. In his official report, Gundry called to government attention the problems, deficiencies and many of the recommendations for their solution that PHON had long reiterated.

While the five mental hospitals were all occupied beyond their nominal capacity, Gundry noted that there were no psychiatric beds in any of the general hospitals though general hospitals throughout the country apparently knowingly admitted psychotic patients. Mental defectives were admitted to all mental hospitals, but no special training was provided for them. The Mental Hospital in Bangkok had 10 psychiatrists on its staff but there were only six other psychiatrists in Thailand.

Gundry found PHON "very forward-looking and generous in undertaking a teaching responsibility despite the fact that he and his staff are more than fully occupied in managing and supervising the hospitals and treating patients under their care." He found institutional psychiatry at a level comparable to that of the best Thai general practice and was confident that, given ministerial budgetary support, "growth would be guided in a wholesome way." All mental hospitals, however, needed more adequate nursing staff and better occupational therapy facilities to improve standards of treatment. He found a "stigma" attached to mental hospitals, particularly in Bangkok, but judged this attitude relatively less significant in Thailand than in other countries with which he was familiar because hospitals generally were regarded with fear by Thais.

Traveling from north to south to the northeast, Gundry found some Thai customs very satisfactory from the point of view of mental hygiene, such as gentle, considerate care of babies, infants and young children. He questioned, however, whether children might be drilled into attitudes that were too submissive, thus giving them poor preparation for increasing independence in adolescence. Even in a rural setting where the impact of change was at a minimum, doctors reported to him a fair number of neurotic and psychosomatic problems, indicating that the apparent stability of rural life and the comfort of the Buddhist way of living were not complete protection from the effects of ordinary stressful situations.

In urban areas the effects of social change and cultural conflicts were even more apparent. Bangkok in 1951 had all the appurtenances of Western life but the housing and living habits of the majority in the city were still close to those of rural Thailand. Ostentatious social entertainment, automobiles, fairly prevalent drinking, worry about money and envy of financial success were all very evident among the small minority more or less influenced by Western customs, and the attitudes implied by these new patterns were all antithetical to the Buddhist way of life. Adherence to Buddhist teachings was overwhelmingly prevalent and sincere, hence conflict, the consultant reported, was inevitable and already arousing anxiety among thoughtful Thais. He also thought the weakening of traditional values which aggravates the natural clash between generations might become acute and destructive.

A more general cause of future stress was suggested by the rate of population increase. In the 1947 census the Thai population was estimated at 17.25 million. With a growth rate estimated at three per cent annually, the country's economy would have to change greatly if the food surplus were not to disappear.

Gundry found a greater community appreciation of the need for general education than for public health, including mental health, and a widespread school system had been developed without regard for these. The character of the school system, he stated, did not promote adaptability in individuals and, if mental and physical aspects of health were to be included in the curricula, the educational philosophy and practice would have to be revised. A basic study of educational method was then being made with assistance from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and profound changes were contemplated.

For improvement and protection of mental health in Thailand, Gundry recommended instruction and stimulation of interest in holistic medicine, preventive medicine and mental hygiene among medical students, student nurses and teacher trainees. He stressed that psychology should be given an importance comparable to that accorded physiology and anatomy, though the same amount of time would not be required. Psychiatry should be taught not only as a medical specialty but more broadly as the study and treatment of psychosocio-biological factors that enter into a large part of illness in general practice.

Gundry's final recommendation was for the establishment of a Mental Hygiene Clinic where medical students, nurses and teachers could learn something about the clinical study of children's problems; where study could be made of some of the social and personal conflicts common in Thailand, where psychiatrists could analyze the factors and processes that go into development of mental illness, and where a small number of cases, mainly children, could be treated. For a period of five years, he emphasized, the clinic should be protected from a heavy case load while it established its own methods and clarified its ideas about the types of problems that were prevalent in the culture at that time.

With Gundry's report to confirm his own previous recommendations PHON gained a more sympathetic hearing for his plans. From 1951 to 1953 construction at The Mental Hospital increased and in 1953 a project he had long proposed was realized: with help from WHO and a government grant, a Mental Hygiene Clinic was erected on the Thonburi hospital grounds, marking the start of preventive psychiatry in Thailand.

In 1954 PHON changed the name of The Mental Hospital to the Somdej Chao Phraya Hospital after the family from whom most of the hospital property had come by purchase or donation. This was in line with modern practice to reduce the patients' feeling of inferiority and perhaps reduce the prejudice of their relatives. From 1954 to 1958 many more changes took place at Somdej Chao Phraya Hospital. New buildings were added and a Child Guidance Clinic was attached to the hospital.

Paralleling these developments, PHON made strides in spreading the knowledge of psychiatry through teaching. Post-graduate work in psychiatry was given in hospitals for the first time in 1955, and the medical curriculum in that year was reorganized to include psychiatry and clinic clerkships. Somdej Chao Phraya Hospital became a teaching and training center in psychiatry, with the instruction recognized by universities and other institutions in Thailand.

In 1958 PHON was appointed Deputy Director General of the Department of Medical Services. Concurrently, he retained the directorship of the Division of Mental Hospitals, and continued to teach psychiatry at the three medical schools.

The Psychiatric Association of Thailand had been founded by PHON in 1954 to provide technical guidance to professional people working in the mental health field. Elected president, he undertook a survey of mental patients throughout the country to obtain basic statistical data for research and studies. In 1959 PHON planned and founded the Mental Health Association of Thailand to supplement public education being carried on through hospitals and clinics. He has served this association continuously as Vice President, member of the Executive Board, and Chairman of the Student Mental Health Project. He has repeatedly been asked to be president but he demurs, requesting people in other fields to take this office so that mental health will be more widely recognized. Both the Mental Health Association and the Psychiatric Association of Thailand publish widely respected journals.

Prasart Neurological Hospital was established in Bangkok in 1955 to help people suffering from neurological and nervous disorders, and an institute for the mentally deficient, the Pan-ya On Training School and Hospital, opened in Bangkok in 1961 with a 50-bed capacity and is responsible for the institutional care, treatment and training of mentally retarded children from 7 to 18 years of age.

Assistance from WHO continued after the initial visit of Dr. Gundry in 1951, with grants made to bring teachers to Thailand and to give Thai doctors and nurses training abroad. Dr. A. Stoller, who first visited Thailand as a WHO short-term consultant in 1957, returned for a follow-up visit in May and June of 1963. Basing his observations both on Gundry's report and his own earlier visit he noted "an overall impression of greater social stability in Bangkok" and reported marked progress in the mental health field.

At the Srithanya Hospital in Nondhaburi, Stoller found the morale of the staff and the management of patients improved, despite a high acceptance of schizophrenics, many of them regressed. He was particularly impressed with this hospital's accomplishments in industrial therapy. In addition to general occupational therapy, a workshop had been set up which manufactured medical and surgical equipment of considerable variety and high standard, and a rehabilitation village had been instituted. The latter, a separate group of cottages built away from the main hospital, was designed as a stepping-stone to patient reentry to community life and was to be linked up with community centers. The successful outcome of this project, Stoller observed, should have wide implications.

Bed occupancy at the five mental hospitals remained at much the same level as in 1957. Patient turnover, however, had considerably increased; admissions and discharges had both doubled. Somdej Chao Phraya was admitting far fewer schizophrenics, thereby improving its range of patients both in terms of potentiality for recovery and for teaching purposes. The other hospitals also had improved in this regard and a "commendably low" death-rate of five per cent of admissions was recorded.

The volume of outpatients treated at Somdej Chao Phraya alone (2,391 in 1962) indicated the large amount of service being given to the mentally ill and also the vast need existing in the community. In Prasat Hospital the neurological emphasis had increased, though there were still large numbers of psychoneurotic, psychosomatic and personality problems. As a result of two spot-surveys in six districts of Thailand a psychotic prevalence rate of 2.7 per 1,000 population had been estimated.

As to mental health training, Stoller reported that the undergraduate curriculum in mental health for the three medical schools—Siriraj, Chulalongkorn and Chiengmai—had been standardized, requiring for pre-medical students 48 hours of general psychology plus 22 hours of clinical psychology in the first year, 33 hours of clinical psychiatry in the second year, three weeks of clinical clerkship in the third year and 48 hours of case conferences and seminars on mental health and child psychiatry in the fourth year. One-year residency training courses for postgraduates in medicine had been established at Somdej Chao Phraya Hospital and accommodation was provided for 16 residents. In 1961 a third six-month postgraduate course in psychiatry was held for doctors from various medical fields.

In nursing schools, general nursing training included 108 hours of instruction in mental illness, child psychiatry and mental health. The School of Public Health included instruction in psychology, mental illness and mental health in its curriculum 18 hours for doctors and 72 hours for nurses. The teachers' training college had also incorporated mental health training in their curriculum, as had the Ministry of Education's College of Education and the Faculty of Education of Chulalongkorn University (30 hours). The Social Welfare School of Thammasat University included 120 hours of psychology, mental health and related social science.

Since Stoller's first visit in 1957, four organizations had been established which were contributing to a significant growth in mental health education among professional groups and the general population. The Mental Health Association and the Psychiatric Association, founded by PHON, had grown to 350 members and 103 members, respectively. The Neurological Association, founded in February 1960, had 63 members and the Psychological Association, founded in November 1961, had a membership of 65. These associations, as well as the Division of Mental Hospitals, were actively involved in public education, much of it through mass media. One doctor ran a successful television program. Numerous books and pamphlets had been produced and distributed jointly through the Division of Mental Hospitals, the Division of Maternal and Child Welfare, the Department of Public Health and the Division of Educational Information of the Ministry of Education. This was in sharp contrast to the lack of coordination between departments noted by Gundry in 1951. There was also close liaison with Buddhist organizations. Psychiatric help continued to be given to delinquents and orphans through the Medical Division of the Juvenile Courts.

Summing up, Dr. Stoller found particularly gratifying the interaction of mental health services with other areas of health and social welfare services and an overall development towards community and preventive psychiatry rather than towards the establishment of large inpatient institutions. Considerable help would be needed from outside Thailand if the many research facilities which had been established in the field of mental health were to be made productive, but "under the able guidance of Dr. PHON SANGSINGKEO, Director General, Department of Medical Services, Ministry of Health, and Dr. Kachorn Antrakan, Director of Mental Health . . . the mental health program would seem to be appropriate for the present general state of development of the country."

Dr. Tsung-yi Lin, who followed Stoller as a WHO short-term consultant on mental health, remained from December 1963 to February 1964 to work with PHON and his colleagues in some depth, making extended visits to all institutions and reviewing mental health development in detail. In the six months since Stoller's visit some important advances had been made and some shortages had become more acute. All the mental hospitals were increasingly overcrowded and understaffed, but the improvements included new buildings, wards and outpatient departments, plus a mobile unit at Surat Thani, the first of its kind in Thailand. Dr. Lin found "most heartening" the expansion of services of the Child Guidance Clinic of Somdej Chao Phraya Hospital. The speed with which the Prasart Neurological Hospital and the Neurological Research Institute had been expanding clinical services and clinical and research facilities was described by Lin as "almost incredible." He cited the dangers, however, of too rapid expansion, overspecialization and premature specialization.

At the Institute for Mental Deficiency in Bangkok, Lin was pleased to witness the "warm and lively atmosphere" in which the children spent their days, actively participating in progressive medical, educational and rehabilitation programs with an understanding staff. He warned that this promising pioneer project could be endangered by overcrowding or too rapid expansion of services owing to the demands of the community. A school building had just been completed and the school was about to take on special education of children living at home.

Lin considered noteworthy the inclusion of a psychiatric examination as part of the routine medical examination of every delinquent brought to the attention of the Juvenile Court, and the attention given by judges to this medical opinion.

The most crucial problem, in Lin's view, was manpower. The contrast between the impressive expansion of mental health services and the shortage of trained personnel was documented by a mental health manpower study made by Lin, with the assistance of the Senior Medical Officer of the Division of Mental Hospitals. The study provided evidence of the shortage of personnel in all categories of the mental health program and, in particular, the grave insufficiency of well-trained teaching personnel. Recruitment presented a problem because psychiatry still rated low among Thai medical students in terms of professional standing as well as future career. Other major factors impeding recruitment were lack of a department of psychiatry, the public image of mental hospitals as custodial, and the lack of vigor in scientific research activities. The deans of the three medical schools and heads of the departments of medicine agreed that an independent department of psychiatry was essential and a post-basic psychiatric nursing program and the training of psychiatric social workers, occupational therapists and teachers for special education of mental deficient were to be given priority in future planning.

In his report, Dr. Lin observed that Thailand possessed assets that are fundamental to the development of a long-range mental health program: the society, despite changes accelerated by foreign influence, was still stable and the traditional culture, with its respect for social order and warmth and gentleness in human relations, still prevailed; Thais were willing to learn and accept reasoned advice and enlightened leadership and government support were available. "The introduction of any change or reform, while making use of scientific knowledge and the available social resources without creating undue disturbance in the tranquil life pattern of Thailand, requires wisdom and careful planning. The leaders of the mental health program, with Dr. PHON SANGSINGKEO as its dean, possess this wisdom," he stated.

Following Lin's visit, mental health services were consolidated as he had strongly recommended, but further expansion has had to await the training of more qualified professional personnel. With the increase in the number of psychiatric cases and the impossibility of providing enough hospital accommodation for inpatient treatment, the Ministry of Public Health is laying great stress on community mental health services, careful follow-up of patients, development of preventive measures and education of the public. The growing mental health education program is spreading an awareness among Thais of this dimension in their lives.

As in the past, the majority of patients taking advantage of mental health services come from the middle class. Though education is beginning to change the pattern, few lower-class patients seek treatment because of their ignorance of mental illness and the services available to them. Still fewer come from the upper class because of prejudice and the consequent loss of public prestige admission of mental illness still involves.

PHON is still very much abreast of mental health developments, though he now works in a wider field. He was named Director General of the Department of Medical Services of the Ministry of Public Health in 1962 and Undersecretary of State for Public Health in 1963.

Recognition of his contributions to mental health include an Honorary Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Medical Sciences in 1954. In 1961 he received the Order of the White Elephant (Second Class) and the following year was made a Knight Commander of the Most Illustrious Order of Chula Chom Klao. In 1963 he was elevated to the Grand Cross (First Class) of the Noble Order of the Royal Crown and in 1964 was awarded the Dushdi Mala (Art) Medal by the King.

His writings in English include "Social Psychiatry," published in the American Social Psychiatry magazine; his World Federation of Mental Health (WFMH) presidential address, "Mental Health in Developing Countries;" and "Community Mental Hospitals" published under the WHO Technical Reports Series. In Thai he has written articles on psychiatry, mental health, psychology and administration and geopsychology, some for use on radio and some for journals of such organizations as the Mental Health Association of Thailand, Psychiatric Association of Thailand, Medical Association of Thailand, and the Department of Medical Services.

Married in 1935 to Pravas Rasanonda, PHON and his wife live in Bangkok. The eldest of their three sons is a doctor assigned to a Provincial Government Hospital, the second son is a lecturer at the University of Agriculture, the youngest is presently studying economics in Japan under a Japanese Government fellowship.

His professional work has taken PHON over the years into related activities which include membership in the Health Committee of the Government Civil Service Board, the National Culture Institute Committee, and the National Council for Research in Social Sciences and Philosophy.

He has frequently made trips abroad to study or to attend international meetings. In 1952 he was Thai representative to the WFMH Conference in England and thereafter made a two-month study tour of Europe and England. Attending the WFMH Conference in 1954 in Canada, he again took advantage of the trip to make a study tour of Canada and the United States. In 1957 he attended the WFMH Conference in Copenhagen. A member of the Executive Board since 1955, he was chosen Vice-President in 1961 and served as the First Asian President of the WFMH the following year. From 1952 he has served as a mental health expert for WHO and attended many WHO congresses as Thai representative. He was the Chief Thai Delegate to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Executive Board in 1964 and 1965. His keen concern for combining traditional cultural practices and values with modern mental health services led to his selection in 1966 as a Senior Specialist at the University of Hawaii East West Center, where he spent four months planning future health programs for his country in company with health leaders from other nations who were similarly engaged.

As Undersecretary of State for Public Health, PHON has since 1963 focused his vigor and enthusiasm upon the broad spectrum of health activities, but former associates in mental health find him unfailingly ready to listen to their plans and problems and give a helping hand.

In all his activities, PHON continues to give meaning to the philosophy he set forth in a paper at the 16th Annual Meeting of the WFMH in 1962. "Investment in roads, health and welfare will yield nothing if the villagers are not prepared to adapt themselves to social and cultural changes brought about by modern technological change . . . Workers in the field of mental health need to dedicate themselves to the continuation of their tasks, to alleviate dangers arising from the population explosion and to create better mental health all over the world . . . ."

August 1966 Manila

REFERENCES:

Canos, Rodolfo T. A Scientific Approach to the Mental Health Program in the Philippines. Manila: Department of Health. Undated.

"Capsule Report," PMHA National Executive Director's Report of Study Tour from July 1961 to January 1962. Manila.

Caulfield, Genevieve. Dr. Phon Sangsingheo. First Asian Vice-President, World Federation For Mental Health. 1962.

Daily Mirror. Manila. May 12, 30; June 8, 15, 21, 23, 30, 1966.

Evening News. Manila. January 28; May 26; June 24; July 6, 1966.

Gundry, C. H. "Mental Hygiene Planning in Thailand," Report of Visit to Thailand from September 24 to November 1951. Bangkok. Undated.

History of Somdej Chao Phraya Hospital. Bangkok. 1963.

Lin, Tsung-yi. Assignment Report on Mental Health Services in Thailand, WHO Project: Thailand 17. Bangkok: WHO Regional Office for Southeast Asia. May 1964.

______. Reality and Vision. A Report of the First Asian Seminar on Mental Health and Family Life, Baguio, Philippines, 6-20 December 1958. Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1960.

Manila Bulletin. June 2, 8, 9, 14, 24; July 14, 1966.

Manila Chronicle. May 12,15,21,27-31;June 1,2,9,10,13,15,16,19,20,22,25,29; July 1,5,7,12,13, 24, 27, 1966.

Manila Times. June 3, 5, 9, 15, 20, 23, 25; July 11, 25, 1966.

Mental Health Services in Public Health Ministry of Thailand. Source unidentified. Undated.

Perfecto, Waldo S. "Mental Health Principles in Education," World Federation for Mental Health, 18th Annual Meeting. Bangkok. 1965.

Philippine Mental Health Association, Inc. Annual Report. 1964.

Philippines Free Press. August 6, 13, 1949.

Philippines Herald. June 2, 6, 22, 23, 30; July 15, 1966.

Public Health in Thailand. Bangkok: Ministry of Public Health, 1963.

Sangsingkeo, Phon. Address at the Sixteenth WHO Plenary Session. Geneva. May 9, 1963.

______. The President's Address. Delivered at the 16th Annual Meeting of the World Federation for Mental Health. Amsterdam. July 22, 1963.

______. Special Progress Report on Mental Health Services, 1959-1963. Bangkok.

Special Child Study Center. Program for 2nd Institute on Mental Retardation, July 5-7, 1966. Manila. 1966.

Stoller, A. Assignment Report on the Mental Health Situation in Thailand, WHO Project: Thailand 17. Bangkok. Undated.

Vatanasuchart, Charoen. Mental Health Services in Thailand. Bangkok: Ministry of Public Health 1965.

Who is Who in Thailand. Bangkok: Thammasat University. 1963.

Woman and Home. Manila. July 17, 1966.

World Federation of Mental Health Journal. Edinburgh. November 1957.

Zaguirre, Jaime C. Our Present Mental Health Problems. Inaugural Address Delivered at the National Press Club, April 28, 1958. Manila. 1958.