Communty mental health—An underview

Summary

This paper has attempted a panoramic view of an immensely complex aspect of psychiatry, an aspect so tumultuous as to over-flow the bounds of psychiatry as a specialty of medicine. The panorama is described as an “underview” because it is not seen from without and above, but aspectually, by a participant, and from within. In spite of the inescapable restrictions of the author's perspective, he has tried to maintain as much objectivity as possible and to make the biases explicit where they could not be avoided. No attempt is made to predict where the emergent thrust of historical movement will carry the field of community mental health. No attempt is made to espouse any particular direction of future growth. It has seemed enough of a task to attempt to say where we are and whence we came to this place. The future comes in its own time.