In the United States, a process is underway that is likely to result in the establishment of subspecialty status for geriatric psychiatry by 1991. To understand this development it is important to examine it in terms of critical and catalyzing influences. It is also important to understand what the thrust of subspecialty status for geriatric psychiatry is and what it is not in the United States. Moreover, the context that has set the stage for this movement in the United States is very different from that of many other nations around the world.