Mental Health Professions

Introduction to Mental Health Professions

Many people confronting mental illness for the first time fall back on (often quite inaccurate) preconceptions about what mental illness is, what sort of treatment is available, and who does the treating. The most common scenario I’ve encountered is one in which people think that mental illness involves hallucinations and delusions (e.g., that mental illness reduces to schizophrenia), and that it is treated primarily by medical doctors in corduroy coats (with leather arm patches, beards and pipes) who offer some variation on Freudian analysis as treatment. This scenario was actually a little accurate thirty years ago, but it resembles little having to do with reality today.