Clinical Seminar in Community Psychology & Mental Health Services Research

The class will focus on community psychology and mental health services research. Community psychology as a sub-discipline is now more than 40 years old. Impetus for community psychology stemmed from a recognition that mental health services generally and clinical psychology specifically needed to change in response to the challenges arising from passage of the Community Mental Health Centers' Act in the mid-1960s. The Swampscott Conference laid the foundation for a new discipline that focused on the community rather than its residents. More recently, the interdisciplinary field of mental health services research has emerged as a variety of public and private mental health authorities have sought to examine the cost, quality, and outcomes of mental health services and mental health service systems in order to inform health policy. These two areas are complementary, and the class will involve an in-depth examination of the intersection between them.