62 MENTAL HEALTH
Editorial In the current issue of this Journal, considerable space has been devoted to the social aspects of Mental Health Work. It has now become evident that the opportunities offered by the disturbed social conditions of wartime have been by no means neglected in improving our experience on this social side. Advances in the social aspects of psychiatry have been in their own way quite as striking as other and more publicized advances in special technique, such as shock therapy, group therapy, narco-analysis, and in the general handling of acute psychiatric illness. The experiences of a military social worker recorded in this issue, indicate something of what can be done even with the limited opportunities for social work existing in a military hospital where patients are separated from their homes, and even by a worker who at the time in question was relatively inexperienced in handling mental health problems.
The field of work described by her, gives added point to the emphasis on the social aspects of a psychiatric service in our second article on ” Some Lessons of Wartime PsychiatryThis article deals in a general way with future possibilities without attempting to lay down exactly how they can be brought into practical effect. It indicates the scope which a properly balanced psychiatric service should occupy in the social sphere as well as in the more strictly medical field. With the introduction of a National Health Service we are presented with the greatest opportunity in history of a practical contribution to the improvement of mental health, and it is clear that the main sphere of operation must be in the home and amongst people engaged in their everyday jobs.
It is up to us to see that the future service is so designed as to hold the confidence of ordinary men and women in their homes and is not regarded merely as a service organized by the doctors for the benefit of those who are mentally unbalanced. The time has come for psychiatry to develop a message suitable for the ordinary usages of everyday life.
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