Behavioral Mental Health: An Emerging Field of Service or an Oxymoron?

Abstract

Proliferation in the use of the terminology around behavioral mental health suggests, on one hand, an emerging field of service that integrates psychiatric, substance abuse, and related services. On the other hand, this development also raises questions about the coherence of this approach. This review explores the history, definitional issues, current trends, and available data on the impact of this field. It considers a variety of critiques of behavioral mental health, such as possibility that the field attempts to integrate fundamentally incompatible domains, that the term "behavioral mental health" is thus an oxymoron, and that it represents a co-optation by the insurance industry of traditional ideals of mental health and of behavioral medicine or as code for the implementation of a medical model that emphasizes short-term, behavioral, and psychopharmacological treatments at the expense of a truly biopsychosocial orientation. Other concerns include the focus on individual change and the effectiveness of behavioral health as a strategy for destigmatizing mental health. Recommendations for addressing the various barriers to realizing the ideals of behavioral mental health include revamping the role of managed care in oversight of treatment decisions, broadening the implementation of evidence-based treatment, and the development of treatment models that build on traditional social work practice models.

Keywords: behavioral health; behavioral mental health; managed behavioral health; mental health trends; service integration.