Community mental health and information underload

As is generally recognized, the community mental health movement has run into many serious obstacles which have caused it to fall short of original expectations. Lack of needed information on the part of policy makers, planners, administrators and workers is presented in this article as comprising much of the problem. Scientific understanding with regard to the nature of both "community" and "mental health" have been deficient and often substituted by idealistic myths based on wishful thinking. In the case of "community", the problem has been an overall failure to generate appropriate research. In the matter of "mental health," the research has been extensive but unbalanced, with serious neglect of important areas subsumed by the social and behavioral sciences. A perspective for dealing with these problems is outlined based on the total spectrum of efforts society makes in the mental health field from curing to health promotion. Two illustrations for utilizing this perspective are given. The first shows the integration of primary prevention with the rest of the effort spectrum, and the second shows the total effort spectrum united by the common target of reducing prevalence.