This text seeks to stimulate greater awareness of the areas of overlap and fruitful interdisciplinary exchanges between environmental/occupational health professionals and mental health professionals, ultimately leading to better care of individual patients, and more effective advocacy for a clean, healthy environment.

Environmental illness is a concept of growing concern to all health professionals. Patients with problems presumably caused by sick buildings, electromagnetic fields and hypersensitivity to chemicals--to name a few--are often referred to psychologists, psychiatrists, and other counselors. The battery worker with fatigue, headaches, abdominal pain and an elevated lead level...the assembly worker with pain and numbness in her hand and delayed median nerve conduction...the patient who develops typical contact dermatitis after working with epoxies..., these are straightforward cases. But they are...