Promises, promises or community mental health services and training: ships that pass in the night.

In common with other publicly funded human-service programs, community mental health centers are victimized by a political advocacy process that inflates expectations, distorts value judgments and, as a result, helps promote ultimate disillusionment. The problems resulting from this "overpromise" are compounded by the performance of staff who are inadequately trained for their jobs. By and large, the education of mental health professionals does not equip them for work in community mental health centers. What they learn in school is not sufficiently related to what they do. The development of "undisciplined" mental health professionals with degrees in mental health should be considered. Their training would rest on new curricula that reflect the needs of patients in community mental health settings and be free of the constraints inherent in traditional disciplinary models.