Putting the Community Back into Community Mental Health: The Role of the Community Worker - Book Chapter

Community mental health has become equated in the minds of many with primary health care. Against  the backdrop of long-term institutionalisation, which has been the mainstay of mental health services in some countries for decades, primary care treatment seems the panacea. In many developed countries, community care came to the forefront in the 1970s in tandem with a push towards deinstitutionalisation, spearheaded in Italy by Franco Basaglia. In much of the developing world, however, the move towards community care is a recent development, which is to be celebrated. There is more, however, to community mental health than the primary clinic.