The new century brings with it new tasks and challenges for social psychiatry. These include the tche development of research and practice bridging of the gap between social psychiatry and the other disciplines of psychiatry; need for a focused effort to understand the impact of new communication technology on mental health and illness; the consequences of the longer life expectancy of people with chronic mental illness for those ill and for society; the impact of significant changes of the concept of family and inter-human responsibilities on social capital; the consequences of the constant lowering of the threshold of suffering in populations of; and numerous others.