Introduction

The public mental health (PMH) system is, in many ways, an excellent example of the differences between marketing in a forprofit context and service delivery by a human service agency. The services of the system are considered as “unsought” services by many primary consumers (clients). Practitioners contend with multiple publics of interest including regulators on a local, state, and national level; secondary consumers (family members and advocacy groups); governing boards; a general public with a high level of stigmatic perceptions (negative demand) of the mentally ill (MI) population.