The author supports the promotion of mental health for deaf individuals through improved and expanded mental health services. To illustrate the psychological, educational, vocational, and social implications of deafness, Chapter 1 presents a profile of the deaf individual with emphasis on the communication barriers which exist at each stage of life. Chapter 2 reviews categories of illness (functional psychoses, neuroses, personality disorders and certain othernonpsychotic mental disorders, psychophysiological disorders, transient situational disturbances, and behavior disorders of childhood and adolescence) and considers the relationship between mental illness and deafness in terms of causes and incidence, difficulties of detection, and occurrence of specific types of illness. A third chapter defines four types of therapies and describes ways in which the treatments are adapted to deaf patients with particular reference to the Mental Health Program for the Deaf (MHPD) at St. Elizabeth's Hospital (Washington, DC). Theory, purpose, and operating procedures are discussed for psychotherapy (individual, group, and family therapy); behavior therapy/modification; activity therapies (self expressive activity therapies, occupational and/or vocational therapies); and somatic therapies (pharmacological and physical therapies). A final chapter focuses on training and research in mental health and deafness with sections on training programs in the MHPD, new directions in academic training programs, and new directions in research. (SB)