ABSTRACT
Because of the special status of and the influence on society and community mental health of the professions of psychiatry and medicine, and of academia and academic institutions, they merit specific exploration. As community mental health practice grew, psychiatry faced overt and covert challenges from other disciplines considering they more appropriate or supplemental to psychiatry, leading to tension and turmoil, jurisdictional battles, and/or adjustments among collaborators in this quickly growing field. Reference is made to Israel Zwerling and Milton Rosenbaum of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who saw community psychiatry as new in terms of including the social sciences and scientists; diagnostic formulations, including social reactions in addition to intrapsychic conflicts; etiology, including social systems; treatment, including intervention in social and environmental structures; and the locus of practice in community sites.
