Bernard Rubin

The General Practice of Community Psychiatry.

This small curious volume is a collection of speeches and papers prepared for disparate groups and media by the staff of an eleemonsynary mental-health clinic, serving some of the citizens of a suburban county (Washington) with a population of approximately 100,000, near but not including Portland, Ore. Dr. Crawshaw, the author, was part-time director of this clinic for five years until his resignation, and the book seems to be an effort to deal with those experiences. Although the title of the book concerns community psychiatry, there is little in the various chapters which relates to that subject, either in practice or research. The idea of a clinic evolved in the minds of some citizens (the reason why is not made clear), and staff were employed, among them the author. A child-guidance clinic was developed, seemingly without reference to the mental-health needs of the citizens they purported

Manual for the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Clinic.

Within the past ten years a renaissance of hope with drug therapy, as well as dissatisfaction with older models of treatment, has brought increasing attention to the area of mental health. Local, state, and federal resources are being mobilized to facilitate new approaches. Essentially mental health has been reintroduced to public health. With the trials, failures, and successes of these new programs we can expect to see more books such as this one documenting an approach to dealing with public mental health problems. Dr. Knight and Mr. Davis have compiled a manual for use in developing and implementing a community psychiatry program. It was written for persons training in the field, as well as those responsible for directing the programs. The authors present some of the problems and ask questions concerning possible strategies that could produce viable solutions. The book begins with a number of items that