Presentation describes the relation between psychiatry and society and their mutual interplay. The special status of psychiatry among the medical disciplines is characterized. Indications and methods of restriction in psychiatry are given. Beside its curative and regulative function, psychiatry has to protect both the patients and the society. The means of restriction are presented (hospitalisation without the patient’s consent, locked departments, physical and pharmacological restrictions, protective psychiatric treatment and other). Problems of medical-juristic dilemma in psychiatric praxis are discussed. Official and unofficial methods of the regulation of patient’s behaviour are described together with the necessity to develop and cultivate them.

        Key words: psychiatry and societies, medical-juristic dilemma.