Citation

Talbott JA. Acad. Psychiatry 1991; 15(2): 106-114.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, American Psychiatric Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

There is no simple answer to the question "Has academic psychiatry abandoned the community?" I think it has incorporated the very best and most useful community psychiatry concepts and programmatic elements into mainstream general psychiatry. I think academic psychiatry has gradually become involved with the chronic mentally ill wherever they are, not always because it wanted to and more slowly than many other voluntary community organizations, but more quickly than most government agencies. And I think, again perhaps faute demieux, it is now, more than ever, heavily involved with society's most difficult and perplexing public mental health problems. That does not mean that there is not more to do. Clearly, more must be done in those areas in which 1) there are manpower problems, e.g., rural areas, CMHCs, and state hospitals; 2) there is absent or abysmal care, e.g., prisons, nursing homes, and shelters; and 3) populations exist that still are largely ignored and underserved, e.g., the dually diagnosed and homeless mentally ill. It is, therefore, the time for neither self-congratulation nor self-condemnation. Rather, now is the time for continued self-examination of which areas academic psychiatry can appropriately contribute to community psychiatric activities by extending its research, training, and service energies.