The June 6 issue features an advertisement for Risperdal on pages 14 to 16. I have found this drug to be most useful for a variety of therapeutic situations, as I suspect many other clinicians have. Moreover, the use of music therapy is a modality of therapy I have championed for many years, and I was chair of one of the earliest APA workshops on the subject.

In light of this background, it is difficult for me to comprehend the implication of improvement in the context of subliminal advertising depicting an obviously Asian young lady after Risperdal therapy placing an obviously substandard violin under the wrong chin and holding neither the bow (looks like a cello bow!) nor the violin in even the remotest way correctly.

It is enough to convince me of placebo therapy or acupuncture for a corrective intercession in a patient with schizophrenia. Granted that the medical profession has not always been at the vanguard of the arts, but I do believe if an advertiser wanted to place a picture of the Mona Lisa in Psychiatric News and ascribe it to Archangelo Corelli as its painter, the editor would protest! In all fairness to the intent of the Risperdal ad, I do think that it is out of place.