ABSTRACT
Gerald Caplan’s methods provided a practical, concrete, and plausible operational definition for how community mental health could be practiced as a public health enterprise. The development of mental health consultation was a commanding illustration that a bridge could be created between the practice of individually-oriented psychotherapy and public health practice. Mental health consultation was the explicit operational technique that gave concrete meaning to how a mental health professional could become transformed and become a public health practitioner. The role relationship of the consultant to the consultee, although confidential, was defined solely by the workplace of the consultee. The workplace became the context for the integration and clarification of internal psychological and external social processes. The consultant can learn much from a first consultee in terms of how norms for social support are defined, and how the norms for self-validation, autonomy, and trust become operational within the organization.
