Many early community mental health center (CMHC) consultations
floundered when consultants attempted to apply Gerald Caplan 's community
consultation theory, which the author describes as based on a private
consultation paradigm, to the very different realities of
government-mandated public paradigm consultation by CMHCs to public
agencies. CMHC consultants were often perceived by consultees as "strangers
bearing gifts" due to the lack of clarity concerning the rationale,
contracts, roles, responsibilities, evaluation, and consultant- consultee
exchanges of their public paradigm consultations. The otherwise disastrous
recent losses of financial support for CMHCs are beneficially forcing them
to shift their community consultation practices toward the private
paradigm.Abstract Teaser