The Community Mental Health Movement in the United States Today, Circa 1970: Part II

Although in the first part of this paper today's psycho-social revolution was presented primarily in terms of its impact on the Community Mental Health Center movement, it has had a number of significant and far-reaching effects in other areas: medical-psychiatric education, the professional role and activity of the psychiatrist and para-psychiatric professional, and the private practice of psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

In connection with their educational services, it has been found desirable, although not essential as a formal requirement, for such centers to be affiliated with a medical school or similar teaching/training institution. Thus, the first comprehensive center to open in New York was associated with the New York Medical College. Freedman20 has discussed this type of affiliated Center within the framework of the original Congressional Act. This is in line with a recent policy of the New York Department of Hospitals. This policy stipulates that every municipal hospital be associated with a nearby teaching hospital (usually a university) in order to ensure a high quality of training for residents, as well as to maintain high standards for the medical attending staff. This trend has been particularly significant in the light of the psycho-social movement. The question has been raised as to whether or not our traditional medical curriculum and psychiatric residency training provide a proper and adequate grounding for community mental health work. Indeed, one finds already a tendency in this country toward a more social orientation in medical education.21 It has been held that some of the medical sciences are not essential requirements for the social psychiatrist and that more training is needed in philosophy, psychology, sociology and the related humanities. Some extremists go so far as to doubt that a medical education is necessary altogether, and would favor a new professional specialty for work in the field of