Editorial: There is
no
The first issue of the new Mental Health was received with an enthusiasm which exceeded our high
hopes.
Not
only
our
re-designed format,
but also the
new, broader-based editorial policy has been welcomed both by readers working in the mental health services and by laymen who have discovered the
relevance of the subjects discussed in this magazine to their everyday lives. Nearly two hundred new subscribers within the last three months have given us a clear indication that the magazine is now, as one newspaper review
Topics in normality
the current and
put it, 'for everyone'. issue are senile diseases, sub-
schizophrenia.
As the 1966 Annual
Conference of the National Association for Mental Health made clear, these represent the 'heart of the matter' as far as the psychiatric services are concerned. But these disorders unrelated to the
can
problems
Compulsory retirement cited over
in
longer be considered as our society as a whole.
of
and social isolation have been
of mental ill-health in old age. Those 65 already constitute 40 per cent of the patients as causes
hospital
fore,
no
because of mental illness. We need, there-
to look very
carefully
at social
changes which
may be contributing to mental illness among the elderly who represent an increasingly large proportion of
our
population.
We know
between the
population.
that
dividing mentally subnormal
now
no
line
can
be drawn
and the rest of the
As Professor Thomas McKeown
pointed
out in his Conference paper, the proportion of those considered subnormal is quite arbitrary and deter-
2
line
dividing
largely by current educational and occupaopportunities. We have, on the one hand, to examine the social problems which may result if present-day insistence on highly skilled labour creates a situation where an increasingly large number of people are no longer considered employable. On the other hand, we have seen in recent years that people classed as subnormal have been able to learn mined
tional
and to work to
extent which would have
an
and
seemed
teaching impossible generation ago, methods which have benefited the subnormal are not a
unrelated to advances in educational a
new
techniques
as
whole.
One person in every hundred, it is estimated, will suffer from schizophrenia before the age of 45, and in
this country alone there are currently some 300,000 who have had psychiatric hospital treatment for this illness. Speaking at the N'AMH Annual
Shoenberg asked if? really an economy to apart?it starve research and treatment of schizophrenia when the result was to deprive us of the talents and abilities of so many people who might otherwise make a great contribution to our society. Conference,
Dr.
Elisabeth
moral issues
Such issues
as
by those who
psychiatric man
and
were
these cannot be discussed in isolation are
services.
woman
working professionally They
are
in Britain.
the
concern
in
the
of every
no
The first issue of the new Mental Health was received with an enthusiasm which exceeded our high
hopes.
Not
only
our
re-designed format,
but also the
new, broader-based editorial policy has been welcomed both by readers working in the mental health services and by laymen who have discovered the
relevance of the subjects discussed in this magazine to their everyday lives. Nearly two hundred new subscribers within the last three months have given us a clear indication that the magazine is now, as one newspaper review
Topics in normality
the current and
put it, 'for everyone'. issue are senile diseases, sub-
schizophrenia.
As the 1966 Annual
Conference of the National Association for Mental Health made clear, these represent the 'heart of the matter' as far as the psychiatric services are concerned. But these disorders unrelated to the
can
problems
Compulsory retirement cited over
in
longer be considered as our society as a whole.
of
and social isolation have been
of mental ill-health in old age. Those 65 already constitute 40 per cent of the patients as causes
hospital
fore,
no
because of mental illness. We need, there-
to look very
carefully
at social
changes which
may be contributing to mental illness among the elderly who represent an increasingly large proportion of
our
population.
We know
between the
population.
that
dividing mentally subnormal
now
no
line
can
be drawn
and the rest of the
As Professor Thomas McKeown
pointed
out in his Conference paper, the proportion of those considered subnormal is quite arbitrary and deter-
2
line
dividing
largely by current educational and occupaopportunities. We have, on the one hand, to examine the social problems which may result if present-day insistence on highly skilled labour creates a situation where an increasingly large number of people are no longer considered employable. On the other hand, we have seen in recent years that people classed as subnormal have been able to learn mined
tional
and to work to
extent which would have
an
and
seemed
teaching impossible generation ago, methods which have benefited the subnormal are not a
unrelated to advances in educational a
new
techniques
as
whole.
One person in every hundred, it is estimated, will suffer from schizophrenia before the age of 45, and in
this country alone there are currently some 300,000 who have had psychiatric hospital treatment for this illness. Speaking at the N'AMH Annual
Shoenberg asked if? really an economy to apart?it starve research and treatment of schizophrenia when the result was to deprive us of the talents and abilities of so many people who might otherwise make a great contribution to our society. Conference,
Dr.
Elisabeth
moral issues
Such issues
as
by those who
psychiatric man
and
were
these cannot be discussed in isolation are
services.
woman
working professionally They
are
in Britain.
the
concern
in
the
of every
