Community Mental Health Teams: A Guide to Current Practices (Oxford Medical Publications) [Paperback]

Tom Burns (Professor of Social Psychiatry at Oxford University) begins with an overview of the origins of community psychiatry, emphasising the importance of therapeutic communities in the development of the CMHT ethos. He then moves on to look at modern multidisciplinary mental health working. Here (inevitably) the author draws heavily on his long, professional involvement in community psychiatry. This means that there is sometimes a blurring between research findings and opinion based on experience.

Substantial chapters are devoted to generic adult CMHTs and assertive outreach. These lead logically into an excellent chapter on early intervention, in which the author highlights the similarities and differences with the assertive outreach approach. Tom Burns is challenging, not to say critical, of some of the aims of early intervention services. He questions the early treatment of prodromal high-risk individuals before they have developed a psychotic disorder. However, he applauds the 'new optimism' which early intervention teams represent and feels that the high standards they set "should begin to be the benchmarks for all services for psychotic individuals, which can only be good."

In all, Community Mental Health Teams is a comprehensive introduction to the range of CMHTS (both generic and more specialised), their history, their aims and the challenges they face. Between the lines, one can also read the story of how trends change in mental health care and how today's innovative new service could become tomorrow's quaint but outmoded way of working.
Reviewer: Tony Gillam

Tom Burns (Professor of Social Psychiatry at Oxford University) begins with an overview of the origins of community psychiatry, emphasising the importance of therapeutic communities in the development of the CMHT ethos. He then moves on to look at modern multidisciplinary mental health working. Here (inevitably) the author draws heavily on his long, professional involvement in community psychiatry. This means that there is sometimes a blurring between research findings and opinion based on experience.

Substantial chapters are devoted to generic adult CMHTs and assertive outreach. These lead logically into an excellent chapter on early intervention, in which the author highlights the similarities and differences with the assertive outreach approach. Tom Burns is challenging, not to say critical, of some of the aims of early intervention services. He questions the early treatment of prodromal high-risk individuals before they have developed a psychotic disorder. However, he applauds the 'new optimism' which early intervention teams represent and feels that the high standards they set "should begin to be the benchmarks for all services for psychotic individuals, which can only be good."

In all, Community Mental Health Teams is a comprehensive introduction to the range of CMHTS (both generic and more specialised), their history, their aims and the challenges they face. Between the lines, one can also read the story of how trends change in mental health care and how today's innovative new service could become tomorrow's quaint but outmoded way of working.