Review of COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS IN ENGLAND: An American View

• Published in: American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 1976-07, Vol.46 (3), p.562-563
• Main Author: McGee, Thomas F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Community Mental Health Services; Human; Mental Health Personnel; Mental Health Programs; Public Health
• ISSN: 0002-9432; 1939-0025
• DOI: 10.1037/h0098938

Reviews the book, Community Mental Health Programs in England: An American View by Norman Rosenzweig (1975). This book provides a clear, comprehensive review and analysis of community mental health programs operating in England in the mid-1970s. The book is open and direct, and exceptionally well organized; it reads easily, and is of potential value to the community mental health professional and to a wide spectrum of individuals interested in the workings of community mental health and public health programs. The book is divided into two major sections: The Background and The Mental Health Programs. The first section provides an unusually broad view of the history of public mental health programs in England, as well as the political context within which these programs have evolved. The section on mental health programs provides a lucid, in-depth description of the variety of community programs presently operating in England. While the author has done an admirable service in presenting and integrating the material, the book has some minor shortcomings. One may be a dilemma inherent in reporting on a community mental health system that is governmentally operated, relatively uniform in nature, and medically oriented, as compared with the pluralistic community mental health system in the US. A second difficulty relates to the comparisons made between the English and American systems of community mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)