The End of the Queue
A recent report published by Help the Aged* combines the results of several studies into the plight of Britain’s pensioner population. The report estimates that a third of a million pensioners are in urgent need of sheltered housing. Thirtytwo per cent of old people are living without hot water, a bathroom or inside lavatory. Medical care is obviously inadequate as the studies found that 1* million old people had undiagnosed sight defects and another 1 million had undiagnosed hearing defects.
Their sufferings, however, are not limited to physical hardship. One million old people suffer severe feelings of hopelessness and personal disorganisation. For many of them, these feelings arise from living on their own.
Speaking at the launching of the report, Hugh Faulkner, director of Help the Aged, made a plea ‘to take the fear out of old age and take the old people from the end of the queue’. He suggested that a Minister should be appointed by the Government to look after the special needs of the elderly.
Clearly the present division of functions within the local authorities is unsatisfactory when it comes to helping old people. As the report says ‘there should be somewhere where the buck stops’. Shared responsibility between social services and housing departments means that buck-passing can easily become a habit when dealing with people who appear to have multiple needs.
Help the Aged has already built 1,000 sheltered housing units, 1,000 more are being built, but without major government aid they can only hope to make a small dent in a vast problem.
*’Granny Come Home’, published by Help the Aged, 8-10 Denman Street, London W.1., price 6p (to cover postage).
Saying, ‘snap out of it’is no help Speaking at the annual conference of the Brent Consultation Centre for adolescents, the director, Dr Moses Laufer, referred to the urgent need to take cases of adolescent depression seriously.
He went on to say that often it is the more destructive child who is the cause for concern?the child who steals, breaks windows or disrupts classes at school; not only because they seem overtly disturbed but because their behaviour annoys those around them.
The depressed child, on the other hand, is likely to be little trouble to his parents. He may appear well behaved, often hiding the fear of showing anger or disappointment with his parents in case they reject him. It is important that he is not just told to ‘snap out of it.
The Brent Centre sees a large number of adolescents who are depressed?the young person who comes in complaining that ‘he has everything to live for but cannot stop thinking of suicide’.
Of the 200 new cases referred to the Centre each year, about 65 per cent are assessed as being seriously disturbed.
Squeezing out the homeless There are growing fears in the metropolis about the accommodation available to London’s single homeless men and women. As the property developers move in to an area, hostels and cheap lodging-houses are being closed to make way for more profitable developments like hotels or office’blocks.
Christian Action, which runs various hostels for the single homeless, estimates that over the last decade this type of accommodation has been heavily reduced in London? from 6,405 beds to about 4,708. This trend is not just confined to the capital; Birmingham, for example, has lost 322 of its 807 beds in the last ten years.
Although some of the residents are itinerant workers who may be able to find accommodation elsewhere, these hostels have always housed a large number of people who are unable to fend for themselves?ex-mental hospital patients, alcoholics, drug addicts and so on.
Local authorities are clearly not in a position to re-house all those made homeless by these closures, although under Section 21 of the 1948 National Assistance Act local authorities can be compelled to do so. It is, of course, those least able to claim their rights who are being made homeless by redevelopment.
It has been suggested that Exchequer grants should be given to local authorities providing this sort of accommodation. This would not only help them meet the cost of providing these services, but compensate for the losses incurred in selling such property for more lucrative commercial development.
Encounter within reach Although encounter groups seem to have become a firmly established part of psychotherapy, their availability to the man in the street seems until recently to have been limited by the high fees charged.
Now the East London Encounter Centre is offering ‘psycotherapy for the masses’. The Centre, which opened at the end of last year, is run by 24-year-old Carolyn Spicer, with a voluntary staff of two dozen, some of them trained psychotherapists, others just enthusiasts.
‘Treating’ between 150 and 200 people a week, the Centre has sensitivity groups, psychodrama and massage. Special groups are run for professionals such as psychiatrists. Carolyn Spicer hopes that these groups will help to curb the high drop-out rate from these professions. In fact, she feels, everyone could usefully benefit from encounter groups to help them adjust to the social stresses to which we are prone.
Fees are on a sliding scale with a charge of up to ?10 for a weekend (even this is considerably lower than the fee normally charged by encounter groups) and fees can be waived completely where someone is unable to pay anything at all.
Encounter groups, as a form of alternative mild psychotherapy to the long and often costly process of one-to-one therapy with a psychiatrist, are obviously here to stay. Putting the brakes on old age A project which was launched recently at London’s Institute of Neurology aims to research into ways of halting premature ageing such as the memory becoming increasingly less reliable in middle age onwards.
The project is being funded by a grant from the newly formed Brain Research Trust which aims to raise ?2 million for neurological research in this country.
Each day 100,000 brain cells die ?and are not replaced. In middle age and old age this process is ‘speeded up’ and hence the rapid mental deterioration which can often take place. The project will study this phenomenon and other bio-chemical changes which affect ageing.
A useful offshoot of this is that understanding these processes could lead to vital new information on the causes of mental handicap in the young.
Professor Alan Davison, who is to head the research project, hopes that results, enabling positive steps to be taken towards the prevention of ageing, might be possible within ten years.
Help for young phobics The Phobias Information Centre which started twelve months ago now has its ‘junior* branch?known as ‘Young PIC’. This is intended to help phobics under the age of 25. Steve Lyman-Dixon, who is running Young PIC on a shoestring budget with the help of two girls, feels that there has been a major increase in phobic illnesses among the under25s and Young PIC is urging GPs to look for phobic anxiety states, when making their diagnoses, before the phobia becomes too severe.
Young PIC are calling for other reforms: benefits under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act to be made available to chronic phobics; and more research into this particular form of neurosis.
Various forms of treatment are offered by PIC. One interesting experiment combines the ‘flooding’ technique with group therapy. A consultant psychiatrist spends the best part of three days taking a group of agoraphobics round big stores, and on buses and so on? ‘flooding’ them with situations which cause their phobic anxiety and perhaps helping them to see that they can survive in such situations.
One of Young PIC’s activities is the setting up of ‘Aggie Sanctuaries’ for agoraphobics. These will be shops or houses displaying a small sticker indicating that the panicking phobic can take refuge there. The Phobias Information Centre is at 109 Sheen Court, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 5DE, and?at the moment?is also the address of Young PIC.
A sympathetic ear
It’s a well known fact that men always pour out their troubles to the barmaid who pours out their drinks. Now bar staff at Milwaukee in the United States are attending a local college for a training course in mental health counselling. Since heavy drinkers often have mental health problems to a lesser or greater degree, the staff behind the bar may be in a position to spot dangers such as potential suicides.
Already one barmaid has stopped a man from going home to shoot another man and stopped a fight between two men, one of whom was going to settle the quarrel with a knife.
But it’s not just a question of breaking up fights and calming the violent; the barmaids are also being taught to advise on marital problems and other more commonly encountered social difficulties. In many areas pubs are still the great social centre so maybe they are also a great untapped resource for psychotherapy, awaiting those needing help and looking for it through the bottom of a glass.
Bleak outlook for autistic children A recent report by the National Society for Autistic Children* highlights the shocking lack of provisions for Britain’s 6,000 autistic children. Of these 6,000, less than 500?or 8%?are receiving education in specialised units. There are only 45 small autistic units in Britain (27 of them in the south-east). Autistic children clearly need special education. Although their mental co-ordination is often very poor, their hearing and sight are usually normal and their IQ is often above normal.
Despite this, many of these children are in hospitals for the mentally handicapped where the educational opportunities are obviously of the wrong kind unless there is a special autism unit.
Of those children not in hospitals, the remainder are living at home, presumably receiving no education at all and presumably with the possibility of admission to hospital at a later date.
The excuse can no longer be given that autism is a recently isolated syndrome. It is now 26 years since autism was first diagnosed? high time that adequate provisions were being made.
Children still in chains, available
from the National Society for Autistic Children, 1a Golders Green Road, London N.W.11. 20p including postage.
ANNE ALLEN Readers will be saddened to hear of the sudden death on 6th July of Anne Allen. Anne was a supporter of the Association for many years and had served on its Public Information Committee since March 1969. She was to have become Chairman of this Committee at its next meeting. She will be greatly missed for her warmth and humanity.
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