This is not only a collection of papers focusing on the past and present of psychiatry in German speaking countries. It is a volume on the roots of contemporary psychiatry. Kraepelin, Bleuler, Alzheimer, Meyer, Kretschmer, Jaspers, Schneider, Leonhard, Binswanger, Freud: Even without the contribution of just one of these, psychiatry would not have been the same. Moreover, the volume provides a brief but very stimulating sketch of the present of psychiatric research in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Probably psychiatry of German speaking countries is not as popular and well known today as American or English psychiatry. Again, language and cultural barriers, but also a different attitude to scientific "marketing", have contributed to create this reality.