ABSTRACT
The persons and organizations who hold them have to be disabused and not let the excuses stand as barriers. Here is where well-trained, sophisticated community psychologists acting as participant conceptualizers and policy developers can make an important contribution. Learning consultation and developing an understanding of the dynamic forces in a community are no easy matters, especially for psychologists born and raised in middle-class circumstances. The Gerald Caplan’s group was engaged in a pioneering study of consultation to public health nurses in the Roxbury area. Gerald Caplan’s perspective on theme interference perhaps developed when handling a huge number of mental health casualties in Israel following World War II. The building in which the Community Mental Health Research Project was housed was opposite one of the Roxbury housing units. The opportunity arose to accompany a public health nurse on one of her visits to the occupants of one of the housing units.
