Mental health articles

Approximately 30 years ago, consulting psychology began to emerge from the shadowof clinical psychology. It became a truly interdisciplinary field, borrowing and integratingconcepts, models, and research from business, organizational behavior, generalsystems theory, group dynamics, action research, community mental health,family systems, and social psychology, in addition to the “godparent” fields of clinicalpsychology, counseling psychology, social psychology, and industrial /organizational psychology.

The mental health consultant can benefit from knowledge related to a broad array of disciplines. Following are brief descriptions of the many fields that contribute to the knowledge base of consultation.

Business: Research in the areas of business gives the consultant a background intothe processes that take place in organizations, including how organizations are strucseartured, managed, and how they survive. Such information can be important to consultants so that they may freely work in organizational environments, and better understand the reciprocal effects between organizations and individuals.

• Organizational behavior: The study of individuals and groups in organizations (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2000). This field draws heavily from both business and psychology research (Kolb, Rubin, & Osland, 1995; Matteson & Ivancevich,1993).

• Human resource management: The design of formal systems in an organization to ensure effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals (Mathis & Jackson, 2003).

• Management: The use of organizational resources to achieve objectives through planning, staffing, leading, and controlling (DuBrin, 2000).

• Marketing: The conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods,and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals(American Marketing Association, 2005; Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2003).

Sociology: The structure and functioning of societies. Knowledge of human behaviorin groups is crucial to consultants who must find interventions for individuals and groups within a larger organizational and societal context.

• Structural sociology: A sociological theory based on the premise that society comes before individuals (Wordreference.com, 2005). It is the study of the various effects of structure on collective behavior.

• Social psychology: The study of the influences that people have on the beliefs or behavior of others (Aronson, 1999). Social psychology can be considered as a subfield of both sociology and psychology.

Psychology: The study of human behavior. The science of psychology gives the consultanta strong background in the functioning of individuals and groups.

• Clinical: The evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of individuals with psychological disorders, as well as treatment of less severe behavioral and emotional problems.Clinical psychologists typically perform psychological testing, interview clients,and provide group or individual psychotherapy (Weiten, Stalling, & Wasden, 1998).• Counseling: Overlaps with clinical psychology. Specialists in both areas engage insimilar activities—interviewing, testing, and providing therapy. Counseling psychologiststend to focus more on enhancing normal functioning or providing assistancewith everyday problems of moderate severity, often specializing in family,marital, or career counseling (Weiten et al., 1998).

• Industrial-organizational (IO): The development and application of psychological theory and methodology to problems of organizations and individuals and groups in organizational settings (American Psychological Association, 1981; Jewell,1998).

• Organizational health: The application of the principles of health psychology in organizational settings (Klarreich, 1998). Health psychology is the scientific study of behaviors that relate to health enhancement, disease prevention, and rehabilitation(Brannon & Feist, 1997).

• Community: The branch of applied psychology that is concerned with modifying both the individual and the structure of the social system to produce optimal benefits for both society and the individual. Community psychologists are primarily interested in preventing maladaptive behavior (Gladding & Newsome, 2004; Goodspeed, 1998; J. A. Lewis, Lewis, Daniels, & D’Andrea, 1998; Sarason &Sarason, 1996).

Psychiatry: A branch of medicine that recognizes the impact of physiological functioning and health on an individual’s performance in group and organizational settings.

• Administrative: Deals with the challenge of delivery system configuration and integrated service delivery in the behavioral health system. Areas of study include organizational theories, leadership requirements, planning models, information system solutions, models of program evaluation, quality management, and training and human resource development (Talbott & Hales, 2001).

• Consultation-liaison (C-L): The subspecialty of psychiatry concerned with medically and surgically ill patients (Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, 1992).

The C-L consultant has an extensive clinical understanding of physical /neurological disorders and their relation to abnormal illness behavior. The C-L consultant is a diagnostician, who teases apart and formulates the patient’s multiaxial disorders,and develops treatment plans. The C-L consultant also knows psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological interventions as well as the wide-ranging medicolegal aspects of psychiatric and medical illness and hospitalization. The psychiatric physician, by virtue of professional stature and knowledge, can supervisea multidisciplinary team (Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, 1998).

Viewed separately, liaison work involves developing the skills of other staff in assessment and management of psychological problems, whereas consultation work assumes that the other staff already possess these skills and need a greater depthof expertise (Gelder, Gath, Mayou, & Cowen, 1996; Stoudemire & Fogel, 1993).

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