The Fate of the Public Psychiatric System

Psychiatry faces a vast array of problems today, including its inability to implement programs for the chronic mentally ill and to apply principles of differential therapeutics, the lack of funds for community services, and the continuing severe fragmentation of the psychiatric delivery nonsystem. Old solutions will not suffice. If the public mental health system is to survive, it must first be defined as comprising all settings, services, and funding for the severely and chronically mentally ill. And it must shift the balance of resources and services from institutional to community-based care. A range of financial and administrative mechanisms, such as various kinds of aggregate funding and a division of responsibility among levels of government, are available to accomplish that shift.