Recently in America there has been increased interest in home visiting and home treatment by physicians.1,2So far this has had its greatest application in geriatrics,3-5but there is increasing interest in its application to other fields as well. Because the place of the home visit in psychiatry is still poorly defined, this paper presents a review of the literature and a study of the home visit as used in current psychiatric practice in the San Francisco area. The first reported program of home evaluation and care of psychiatric patients goes back over 30 years to Querido's Amsterdam Plan.6-8Querido's premise was that rehabilitation of the mentally ill person was a social process and should, if possible, be accomplished within the community itself. After developing facilities for immediate and prolonged care of the acutely disturbed patient in his home, Querido's