Consultee-centered consultation in the 21st century has its origins in the consultation methods introduced in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Mental health specialists were grappling with ways to broaden the application of mental health principles in community settings to reduce the prevalence of mental health disorders, and to develop strategies to intervene with the mental health, learning, and behavioral problems of the general population. These efforts to design federal, state, and local mental health services with a broader out-reach culminated in the Federal Community Mental Health Centers Act (. Public Health Service, 1963) followed by similar state legislative mandates. These legislative initiatives outlined a wide range of interventions.
