The Future of Mental Health Education in England and Wales
- Author:
Doris M. Odlum M.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., D.P.M.
Vice-President, The National Association for Mental Health I speak as one who has been engaged in the educational field in respect of mental health for the last twenty-five years. When my interest in this subject started, early in the ‘twenties, it was certainly a practically unknown field, and those of us who have worked in it will realize that we have had not only to try to build up something but to break down something?something which is still not completely broken down, namely, public apathy and fear.
The mention of the word ” mental ” conveys to a number of people in this country a suggestion of insanity or mental deficiency, whereas, of course, the education for mental health which we are trying to build up is predominantly concerned with the development of harmoniously integrated human beings. That is the true way of preventing mental illness.
When this job of trying to get the subject before the public was started, we were handicapped because our own knowledge was extremely vague and scanty ; even now it is very far from being completely co-ordinated. I fully agree that a great deal of the publicity which has taken place on this subject has done more harm than good. Often it has been vague and woolly; sometimes claims have been made which have not been substantiated, and again it has fallen not infrequently into the error of vulgar sensationalism. Therefore this entire field bristles with difficulties.
The subject is one which journalists find extremely difficult to handle. The journalist has to pin-point something to get it home to his readers. That has made our job very much more difficult, because if we do try to put some particular point across in this way, only too often the result is a complete distortion.
In this country, for the first time in its history, owing to the passing of the National Health Service Act, a charge has been laid upon local authorities to carry out preventive medicine. One aspect of such preventive medicine is health education, and happily this includes mental health education as well as physical. Up to the present this has been left almost entirely to voluntary associations and has been greatly limited by their resources. Adequate public education involves the expenditure of considerable sums of money. Moreover, these voluntary bodies have had no official backing; but now that mental health has become ” respectable “, and has received official blessing, the position is much more hopeful. The local authorities, however, as they have never had to do this job before, are naturally ignorant as to how to set about it, and there is no doubt that much public education will remain with the voluntary bodies for a number of years to come.
What are the methods of public education which it can be hoped to carry out ? First of all, there is the appeal to the specialist groups. This is of first importance. An endeavour must be made to get the mental health picture over to the leaders in various fields?educationists, doctors (who are often conservative and reactionary in many ways), teachers of religion, social workers in every field, industrialists, legislators, magistrates and all who have to do with criminals. In fact, this question concerns all those who play any part in the handling of other people. Industrial medicine, by the way, is for the time being left out of the new state service, but it is to be hoped that it will be included in the near future.
There is only one way of educating such people and that is to get them into groups where they can discuss and try to find out where their own fields and the fields of those actively interested in mental health adjoin. The National Association for Mental Health is doing a great deal by organizing special meetings for such groups and arranging courses v * Summary of address given at a Specialist Meeting of the National Association for Mental Health in connection with the International Congress on Mental Health, August 20th, 1948. of education in mental health, dealing both with principles and practice, for parents, teachers, and nurses, and especially for all those who have to do with children and adolescents. The Association, moreover, tries so to arrange matters that the demand for such assistance comes from the special groups themselves ; it is felt that this is much more satisfactory than organizing meetings of its own. It is much easier to get something across to a small group than to a big one. Public lectures on a large scale nevertheless have a useful role in creating general interest. It would be most desirable to have in every town and every country area a mental health organization, either a voluntary one or one supported by the local health authority, and I think that such a body should be responsible for mental health education in the area. A relatively small unit could work much better locally than a body working from the centre. The central body deals with over-all policy, but the main work should be done by local groups. Any local group should make it its business to stimulate the local health authority, asking it, for example, what it is doing for its unstable children, defectives, neurotics, delinquents, the ageing, and all the different groups who need help. One of the ways in which we can all help is to get groups formed? a social research group, for example, into the problems of delinquency in an area. We all know how much keener people feel about a problem if they are all expending some personal energy over it, and it is important to get these groups, and every member of them, to work. Another method is to get local health authorities to hold ” Health Weeks ” in which mental health aspects will be well stressed. There is some tendency to hold Health Weeks and to forget mental health altogether. It is necessary to see that mental health material is provided for the Health Week, including exhibitions and talks, and that there is an Information Bureau where information on this subject can be obtained. An Information Bureau in each locality, to which people can go and find out about their problems, is essential.
Another very important thing, of course, is the appeal to the eye. If we are to have posters, leaflets, and pamphlets dealing with the different aspects of mental health this will mean the spending of a great deal of money. The more important thing is to ensure that the literature is of the right kind. It is necessary to avoid the ” jargon ” of an academic presentation, and yet at the same time the subject must not be vulgarized. It is difficult to be at the same time dignified, not to over-simplify, and yet to avoid academic terms. Very few people are expert both in mental health and in the public presentation of it. The person who is a good mental health expert may not be able to prepare a popular document or design an attractive poster. Yet these latter are things which we must learn to do, and every member should try to develop a technique to that end. Broadcasting is a powerful means of propaganda for mental health. In this country there is only one broadcasting system, the B.B.C., and ” time” cannot be purchased. During the last few years a good deal of psychological material has been broadcast, most of it very well done. The people concerned have gone to the experts and some good work has been put out. I am sure that broadcasting is a very important ” arm “. Films are another most important field, still quite unexplored. Another method adopted by the National Association is the holding of an annual conference ?invaluable because among others it interests local authorities in the subject. The conference is attended by perhaps 1,200 people, of whom 400 or 500 are delegates from local authorities. There are thus many fields of public education waiting to be tilled; only the workers are needed and a certain amount of money to get going. Fortunately, in Great Britain the Government is beginning to get interested in this work.* Only last year it appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Sir George Schuster to investigate the human factor in industry. We are very hopeful for the future. We have an opportunity before us such as has never before arisen, and we have to learn to use it in a practical and efficient manner.
See, however, note on page 107.?Editor.
If we are to build a world in which people can work together across political, religious, racial and professional lines, we need new organizational forms which really embody our new mental-hygiene insights. Dr Margaret Mead, Ph.D.
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