Orientation to community mental health for clinicians in training

Abstract

Many of the principles and practices of community mental health are compatible with valid clinical training and offer perspectives and context within which training can flourish. This article addresses some of these considerations and outlines some of the training opportunities that focus on the substantial common ground between the two fields. Some of the reluctance of clinical training institutions to develop training in community mental health can be understood as stemming from an awareness of the complexities of training required to develop a community mental health specialist. If the focus is on a basic orientation to the field of community mental health for the clinician, rather than specialty training, the total program can be enriched, rather than diminished, and the commonalities between the fields expanded.