The Perils of Prevention

This column discusses the fallow period in the development of a preventive orientation to mental health problems. The desperate state of mental health needs has finally forced itself upon the awareness and the conscience. At times a startling compartmentalization between preventive interventions and traditional clinical work. Individual clinicians or clinical settings strongly committed to and involved in preventive approaches may totally ignore or actively reject preventive opportunities repeatedly occurring amidst their day-to-day clinical activities. With preventive interventions as with individual therapeutic work or broad social action programs, one must avoid tunnel cognition and remain alert to the full range of the impact of the interventions. Significant progress in meeting mental health needs must ultimately rest upon preventive efforts. Even for those skeptical of man's capacity to master simultaneously his inner conflicts and his external adaptive tasks, preventive approaches to mental health hold much promise and embody profound hopes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)