stylistic:tone, information:extraction, structural:summarization, information:highlighting
United States

During the 1840s, Dorothea Lynde Dix, a retired Boston teacher who is considered the founder of the Mental Health Movement, began a crusade that would change the way people with mental disorders were viewed and treated. Dix was not a social worker; the profession was not established until after she died in 1887. However, her life and work were embraced by early psychiatric social workers (mental health social worker/clinical social worker), and she is considered one of the pioneers of psychiatric social work along with Elizabeth Horton, who in 1907 was the first social worker to work in a psychiatric setting as an aftercare agent in the New York hospital systems to provide post-discharge supportive services.

The early twentieth century marked a period of progressive change in attitudes towards mental illness. The increased demand for psychiatric services following the First World War led to significant developments. In 1918, Smith College School for Social Work was established, and under the guidance of Mary C. Jarrett at Boston Psychopathic Hospital, students from Smith College were trained in psychiatric social work. She first gave social workers the "Psychiatric Social Worker" designation. A book titled "The Kingdom of Evils," released in 1922, authored by a hospital administrator and the head of the social service department at Boston Psychopathic Hospital, described the roles of psychiatric social workers in the hospital. These roles encompassed casework, managerial duties, social research, and public education. After World War II, a series of mental hygiene clinics were established. The Community Mental Health Centers Act was passed in 1963. This policy encouraged the deinstitutionalisation of people with mental illness. Later, the mental health consumer movement came by 1980s. A consumer was defined as a person who has received or is currently receiving services for a psychiatric condition. People with mental disorders and their families became advocates for better care. Building public understanding and awareness through consumer advocacy helped bring mental illness and its treatment into mainstream medicine and social services. The 2000s saw the managed care movement, which aimed at a health care delivery system to eliminate unnecessary and inappropriate care to reduce costs, and the recovery movement, which by principle acknowledges that many people with serious mental illness spontaneously recover and others recover and improve with proper treatment.

Social workers made an impact with 2003 invasion of Iraq and War in Afghanistan (2001–2021); social workers worked out of NATO hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraqi bases. They made visits to provide counseling services at forward operating bases. Twenty-two percent of the clients were diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, 17 percent with depression, and 7 percent with alcohol use disorder. In 2009, there was a high level of suicides among active-duty soldiers: 160 confirmed or suspected Army suicides. In 2008, the Marine Corps had a record 52 suicides. The stress of long and repeated deployments to war zones, the dangerous and confusing nature of both wars, wavering public support for the wars, and reduced troop morale all contributed to escalating mental health issues. Military and civilian social workers served a critical role in the veterans' health care system.

Mental health services is a loose network of services ranging from highly structured inpatient psychiatric units to informal support groups, where psychiatric social workers indulges in the diverse approaches in multiple settings along with other paraprofessional workers.