Mental health is as important as physical health to the overall
well-being of individuals, societies and countries. Yet only a small
minority of the 450 million people suffering from a mental
or behavioral disorder is receiving treatment.
Mental health has been defined variously by scholars from different cultures. Concepts of mental health include subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, intergenerational dependence, and self-actualization of one's intellectual and emotional potential, among others. From a cross-cultural perspective, it is nearly impossible to define mental health comprehensively. It is, however, generally agreed that mental health is broader than a lack of mental disorders."
The human service provider field is comprised of a complex and bewildering array of overlapping and related, but separate professions that include mental health counseling, psychology, social work, marriage and family counseling, professional counseling, and psychiatry. Because each provider profession has essentially the same goals and accomplishes these by performing similar activities, human service delivery professions may seem very alike from the outside, which means that it can be very confusing to understand a profession's distinct identity. It is not particularly surprising that the nuances that distinguish these professions seem amorphous, unclear, and perhaps somewhat irrelevant to the public.
In terms of clarifying uniqueness, the borders of the human service delivery fields can be distinguished based on "professional identification, ... practitioner's entry level graduate degree ..., basic academic discipline, conceptualization of mental health problems, and approach to treatment" (Hersehenson & Power, 1987, p. 3).
Mental Health Counseling - Historical Tradition
MHC has a brief but bold past. In the social-historical-economic context following World War II, non-medical, behavioral and cognitive approaches to psychotherapy flourished, with some of this growth being stimulated by the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963. This act, which "established funding for the development of community-based mental health care programs with interdisciplinary teams" (Weikel & Palmo, 1989, p. 8), contributed to increasing the number of master's-level practitioners................
