The Connecticut Mental Health Center is a collaboration of the State of Connecticut, through its Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and Yale University, through its Medical School and Department of Psychiatry. The connection between the state and university means that the Center attends to the mental health needs of the public.

The Center is the lead agency for a network of 16 community-based agencies that provide vocational and psychosocial rehabilitation, residential services, case management, support services, and education for families. By integrating these rehabilitative and support services with treatment interventions, the Center is dedicated to recovery in the community.The Center is home to a spectrum of academic programs related to its clinical services. Academic pursuits include programs on chronic illness, recovery, addictions, law and psychiatry, neurobiology, services evaluation, epidemiology, prevention, and cultural diversity. Each of the academic programs has both research and educational components that are carried out under the aegis of the Yale University Department of Psychiatry. The Center's medical and professional staff members are also full-time members of the Department of Psychiatry.

ForewordKenneth S. ThompsonIntroduction: The Connecticut Mental Health Center as a publicpsychiatry initiativeSelby C. Jacobs and Ezra E. H. Griffith1 Severe and persistent mental illnessBruce Wexler, Larry Davidson, Thomas Styron and John Strauss2 Connecticut Mental Health Center clinical, research and trainingprograms in the addictionsRichard Schottenfeld, Kathleen Carroll, Thomas Kosten,Stephanie O'Malley, Bruce Rounsaville, Rajita Sinha and Herbert Kleber3 The law and psychiatry division at the Connecticut MentalHealth CenterHoward V. Zonana and Madelon V. Baranoski4 The neuroscience research program at the Connecticut MentalHealth CenterGeorge R. Heninger, John H. Krystal, Ronald S. Duman,Benjamin S. Bunney, Malcolm B. Bowers, Jr. and George K. Aghajanian5 Psychiatric epidemiology, services research, prevention andpublic healthSelby C. Jacobs, David L. Snow, Rani Desai and Gary Tischler6 Ethnicity, mental health care disparities and culturally competent careat the Connecticut Mental Health Center Howard C. Blue, Luis Anez, Manuel Paris, Dietra Hawkins andRobert Page7 A public-academic partnership at the Connecticut MentalHealth CenterWayne F. Dailey, Thomas A. Kirk, Jr., Robert A. Cole and Paul J. Di Leo8 Public psychiatry training and education at the Connecticut MentalHealth CenterJeanne Steiner, Nancy Anderson, Richard Belitsky, Michael Hoge,Martha L. Mitchell, William H. Sledge and Sophie Tworkowski9 The future of academic public psychiatry Selby C. Jacobs and Ezra E. H. GriffithEpilogue: Academic-public partnership from a British perspectiveAjoy Thachil and Dinesh BhugraIndex