Abstract
The author's personal reflections in connection with his 20 years' anniversary of work as a psychiatrist are presented. Some ideas and theories emerging in psychiatry are considered in terms of truth and lie. Such problems are taken under consideration, as e.g. the definition of mental health and mental illness, the phenomenon of delusions, methodology of empirical research in psychiatry, ethical aspects of "deinstitutionalization", accountability of schizophrenic patients.