HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 13“40-20-20-20” formula was developed whereby psychiatry would obtain
40 percent of the funds and psychology, social work, and psychiatric
nursing 20 percent each.^47 One of Felix’s oral histories pointedly des
cribes this mechanism:
I am so ashamed of this that I hoped to forget it. This is part
of the old power struggle....[The Training and Standards
Branch was] having a lot of good applications coming in and
some of the very best applications coming in were from
psycholog[ists], who are natural born grant writers, grantsmen
and also statisticians....Some of the prettiest applications we
ever got....Well, some of the people began to get nervous
...because...one year, for instance, they took them right as
they came down the line. Sixty or seventy percent of the
money would have gone to psychology. Because they were
ready and the rest weren’t and so this was bitterly protested
that you couldn’t do anything without psychiatrists. They
were captain[s] of the team, everybody else followed them
and here are these others getting out of line and there would
be rebellion in the ranks. So the council passed a resolution
that...under the law you can’t make a grant unless approved
by council....Therefore, council set as its policy that they
would not approve grants other than in the proportion of
40 for psychiatry, 20 for each of the other three and there
was nothing left for anybody else. There was a lot of
screaming...In those days there was one psychologist on
the council and some laymen, who were mostly psychia
try oriented....I was opposed to it but it was obvious that
it was not going to get anywhere. And that 40-20-20-20
stayed in for several years.^48NIMH Intramural Program
The Office of the Scientific Director was involved in the intramural
research conducted at the institute’s own laboratories, the NIH Clinical
Center, and in the field (at the Addiction Research Center at the Lexington