Treatment
Historically, the mental health and substance abuse treatment systems in the United States have been separate, and
traditional approaches to treating people with co-occurring disorders have involved parallel
or sequential treatment in these separate systems. In practice, patients with co-occurring mental and substance
use disorders have rarely received needed treatments and have generally experienced poor outcomes.
As a result, there has been widespread endorsement by patients, clinicians, administrators, and researchers for integrating mental health and substance