About one third (29.5%) of the population living within the area of Frankfurt, for which the psychiatric university clinic provides psychiatric service, are foreigners. For the better understanding of our foreign psychiatric inpatients treated in our clinic in in 1992, the diagnostic spectrum and the nationalities of these patients were analysed. More than half of them (58%) were raised up in former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Marocco. The other foreign patients came from 36 different countries. The diagnostic spectrum comparing german and foreign patients showed marked differences. Paranoid schizophrenia was more common in foreigners (31.5%) compared with german patients (16.8%), as well as female foreigners were admitted to the clinic because of psychoreactive disorders (65.2% of all turkish females) more often. The language barrier limited the treatment in many patients. In addition treatment was also hampered by family induced pressure on our patients. This was mainly due to differences and misunderstanding concerning the nature and treatment strategies. In spite of these difficulties, engagement of the therapeutic teams and treatment outcome did not differ between german and foreign patients. In order to improve treatment modalities, we quote for an increasing number of psychiatrists, who are capable of serbocroatic, turkish, italian, polish or arab language and culture, to work in clinical psychiatry.