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Clear, comprehensive, and accessible, this textbook presents an overview of the contemporary American mental health system and its impact on clients and social workers. The failure of the system to provide quality care for the mentally ill is explored, including issues and policies that social workers face in accessing mental health care for their clients, while also discussing the ways in which social workers can improve the overall functioning of the system and promote the development and expansion of policy and practice innovations.This is the first textbook to examine the lack of understanding of the roots of mental illness, the challenges in classification of mental disorders for social workers, and difficult behavioral manifestations of mental illness.