Mental Health Care and Social Policy

Originally published in 1985, at a time when the previous 2 decades had witnessed dramatic changes in the US mental health system. These included the decline of the state mental hospital, the birth of the community mental health center and the expansion of psychiatric services in general hospitals. The inevitable results of the changes were the creation of a huge nursing home population of the chronically mentally ill, and the multiplication of urban ‘street people’. Mental health care is uncoor