Shortly after this conference, the Division of
Community Psychology (alsocalledtheSocietyfor
Community Research and Action) was organized
within the American Psychological Association. Soon
The Community Mental Health Journaland theAmerican
Journal of Community Psychologybeganpublication.By
1977, President Jimmy Carter had commissioned a
panel on mental health issues with specific directives
to promote community mental health centers and
their facilities. Textbooks began to appear, including
Zax and Specter (1974); Heller and Monahan (1977);
Rappaport (1977); Heller, Price, Reinharz, Riger, and
Wandersman (1984); Orford (1992); and more
recently, Dalton, Elias, and Wandersman (2001) and
Orford (2008). Reviews began to appear regularly in
theAnnual Review of Psychology(e.g., Trickett, 2009),
and handbooks have been published (e.g., Rappaport
& Seidman, 2006).
Then, things changed. President Ronald
Reagan’s election led to changes in funding for com-
munity health centers that gradually fragmented the
mental health services available and reduced the
emphasis on focused, centralized mental health
centers. Funding dissipated, and the community
mental health system began to fall apart. Several indi-
vidual states have developed programs based on the
original community mental health center model;
however, this approach to mental health services
has been fading. Recently, President Obama’shealth
care reform offered some promise for a revival of the
community approach, with an emphasis on preven-
tion, evidence-based community approaches, and
the integration of multiple systems of influence
(e.g., schools, homes, justice systems, health care sys-
tems) to promote mental health. The next several
decades will be critical for determining the role of
community-based approaches in clinical psychology.
To flesh out the foregoing chronology, it is
helpful to pinpoint several issues or concerns that
have catalyzed the emergence of community
psychology.Treatment Facilities. Although the mental hos-
pital population in the United States peaked at
about 500,000 in the mid-1950s, socially oriented
clinicians continued to press for alternatives to the
costly, inefficient, and often largely custodial hos-
pitalization of patients. Two factors combined atF I G U R E 16-1 President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson were instrumental in providing the
political leadership to get the community psychology movement underway.
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