ABSTRACT
The community mental health center (CMHC) program was a concrete manifestation of the community mental health (CMH) perspective with all its varying and conflicting definitions, contributions, and consequences. Lindemann was recruited as a resource person on family living as part of a review of the US social security administration's expenditures. CMH was a flashpoint in addressing social needs as well as individual pathology, psychiatry's involvement with other human services, and the involvement of federal and state bureaucracies. Some community mental health programs already were operating when the first new drug was discovered in France in 1952. Subsequently, in 1963, it authorized a substantial Federal contribution toward the cost of constructing CMH centers proposed within the framework of state mental health plans. The national interest in attacking mental illness has grown at a fantastic rate.
