Thanks, everyone. I also found one explanation that said that the term "behavioral health" grew out of the term "behavioral medicine," which is an interdisciplinary medical and scientific discipline dealing with people's behavior, and is quite broad, as serafim said.
At the link ECHOES gave (very interesting), there was a link to another article on this question that was very thoughtful:
"Behavioral Health vs. Mental Health: Does what we call it influence how people think about it?"
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...-mental-health
The author ponders this term and lists 3 things she likes about it and 3 things she doesn't like. When I see the term "behavioral health", I do not have a positive response to it, and I think this author put her finger on it in one of the 3 things she doesn't like about it:
Quote:
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"...behavioral health doesn't seem to imply that there are root causes for what we see as behavior. Within the field of suicide prevention, for example, we don't just want to prevent the behaviors that lead to suicide, but the underlying causes of those behaviors."
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That was my worry too, that "behavioral" meant the focus was on behaviors instead of underlying causes. To be healed one needs to go to the root cause. In many cases, "fixing" problem behaviors isn't going to really get at the problem. (In some cases, though, I think changing the behavior
can provide the solution.) I just got a negative vibe from the term, as if it seemed to imply that the healers don't really care what's causing your pain and dysfunction, they just want to fix your behavior and send you out the door. Let's apply some conditioning techniques to get you to stop banging your head against the wall, but let's not figure out why you're so miserable in the first place so that you do bang your head. If we figure out why, we have a better chance of making lasting change. Do we want people to behave well or to be healed?
Anyway, those are just some thoughts that came up for me.
I see at some universities that they offer master's degrees in Behavioral Health and that some states offer licensing to Behavioral Health practitioners (not MDs). These universities did not offer mental health counseling Master's programs, so it made me wonder if, at least in those states, Behavioral Health practitioners are replacing Mental Health Counselors/Psychotherapists. If you go see is Behavioral Health practitioner, do they offer you the same services as a Mental Health Counselor?