PART XI: My Dear Ones and Expansion
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TREASURE: The book My Dear Ones (Ed. Note: My Dear Ones was published in the fall of 1971) continues to cause quite a stir in Recovery, Phil. Just last week, I received a long distance call from a person who no longer attends meetings. He was reading the book on his lunch hour and felt he just had to talk with someone and share the profound feelings of gratitude and wonder the book had aroused in him.
PHIL: This has been a common experience. We have received many letters as well as phone calls. There is no question about it...the book has had an impact on our entire membership, both past and present!
TREASURE: Many of the Recovery Reporter readers may not have been present when the authors, Neil and Margaret Rau, appeared at our national conference last November, shortly after the book was published. When they were asked to come forward to the podium to say a few words, they walked down the aisle to thunderous applause from the several hundred Recoveryites in attendance and the spontaneous standing ovation continued for some time after they had been standing quietly facing the audience and ready to speak. I looked around and noticed through my own tears that quite a few others were experiencing a similar response. Neil passed away shortly after their return from that trip to Chicago. But he knew how Recovery folks felt about the book.
PHIL: Probably the best evidence Neil and Margaret had, that they had authored a sensitive book, were the admiring letters they received from Dr. Low's own family, including his two daughters, Phyllis and Marilyn.
TREASURE: As we view the future, knowing this book will continue to be in focus both inside Recovery and before the public at large, I can't help but think how differently it could have turned out. Supposing it had turned out to be a book that did not accurately portray the character and goals of our organization?
PHIL: Well, it sure would have been a different story! As it is, our 35th Anniversary will feature My Dear Ones as its theme this coming November. That's because we are proud of the book and want to take it to the very heart of our organizational life. I've already mentioned, also, that I sent copies to 38 of my relatives and friends. I think the book will awaken in all people who read it, their own desire to help those suffering from this ailment.
TREASURE: I've tried to figure out the reasons for its remarkable success, Phil, especially with our membership. I think one of the reasons is the fact that Neil and Margaret attended our meetings for three years, they listened to all of the tapes and records, interviewed dozens of members, attended all of our national conferences and their local leaders' training meetings. They actually became one of us.
PHIL: That's true, but even more than that I feel the success of the book can be attributed to the fact that My Dear Ones revives in our minds the great cause Dr. Low established when he founded Recovery.
TREASURE: Right! I believe it is this great cause that makes that book live. First the Raus captured the strong character of Dr. Low, albeit a human being, and painted very vividly the picture of this great man struggling against heavy odds to help the unfortunate patients who could not speak for themselves.
PHIL: I wonder if all the Recovery Reporter readers understand fully what we speak of when we mention this great cause?
TREASURE: Why don't we let Dr. Low spell it out himself, Phil? We can quote from an article he wrote in 1954. Not only does it bring out the close feeling between Dr. Low and his patients, which inspired the title of the book, My Dear Ones, but he gives a very definite charge to Recovery's leadership on the direction expansion should take.
PHIL: O.K. Here are pertinent excerpts from the article -- then let's see how we're doing with direction!
| Excerpts from Dr.
Low's Article "Frankly, the expansion drive gave me serious misgivings. I knew its importance; I knew it was necessary for us and, more urgently, for the uncountable tens of thousands of suffering patients whose tragic plight fairly clamored for rescue through Recovery. I knew that we defaulted on a sacred duty if we continued to withhold our assistance from those who were badly in need of our techniques. I knew several other things: that parents, teachers and clergymen could improve immeasurably on their job of ministering to the young, the perturbed and tormented, if they were given the opportunity to acquaint themselves with our procedures. They could, then, confer the blessings of Recovery training on those in their charge, patients or not. Nor was it a secret to me that humanity in general could use with great profit our method of temper control for the improvement of domestic, social and even economic conditions. All of this I knew. Nevertheless, the prospect of an expanding Recovery filled me with grave forebodings. A Recovery, expansion, might easily spill over and grow big, perhaps very big. And bigness is a quality which I dislike. I dislike it particularly with regard to Recovery." "You know how a mother trembles at the thought that her children will some day be big. To her, bigness is a frightening prospect. It is the threat of losing the status and function of a mother. Motherhood means tenderness and intimacy and closeness and deep personal feeling. How can you be tender and intimate and close and personal with a crowd bursting with bigness? For seventeen years I had been all of this to my patients. At least, I tried to maintain with all of them a relationship which had all the earmarks of those utterly human characteristics which I mentioned. They were my children, and I tended them. They were fed my thoughts and were guided by my teaching. They gave me the singular opportunity to be their parent, doctor and teacher, all in one. How can you be a father to a crowd, a doctor and teacher to a building multitude the members of which you hardly know by name or face?" "It had been my privilege and priceless asset to approach my patients with love and personal interest and have them return the same sentiments to me. You may be able to love a crowd, but can you give it and receive from it personal interest? Can you have personal relations with humanity in the mass?" "I knew that this was a sentimental attitude. But, sentimental or not, I felt uncomfortable in the many years in which the issue of expansion was discussed and pressed for. I suspect that I made scant effort to control my sentimentalism, and I have reason for doubting whether I might not have 'processed' it. Today I know that expansion must be, and I am determined that it shall be..." "The 1951 convention decided that henceforth expansion was to be the foremost Recovery concern. The rank and file had always insisted on vigorous campaigning, but I held them back. I had always hoped that the psychiatric profession would some day join me in my endeavor. By 1951 I had already waited fourteen years, and my hopes of winning over the profession had faded. There was nothing left for me to do but to turn over the issue to the membership and let them proceed with an expansion campaign of their own. What followed is already history..." "Having turned over the campaign to the membership I am an outsider, watching the goings-on from the sidelines. As a professional man I cannot engage in action against the state hospitals. As one neutral to the procedure I am impressed with the subtlety of both strategy and tactics. In point of leadership the campaign is managed with the utmost in skill, in point of rank and file action the performance is thrilling..." "If this is to be an Expansion Drive, our patients who will have to do both the expanding and the driving ought to consider what the two terms mean. Expansion calls for direction, and a drive ought to have intensity, that is, force. We do not have to worry about the intensity. Of this dynamic quality we have an excess rather than a deficit." "I meant to continue the list and make reference to the leaders of the branches founded since the expansion drive opened in late 1951. But the list is too extensive and would add bulk without enhancing the quality of description. What has been said ought to be a convincing demonstration of the vast store of intensity which we possess." "This is different in the matter of direction. And to know the direction in which expansion is to take place is more important than to possess intensity. Otherwise, you might fritter away your energies in wrong territories or rush against the wrong target. Our targets are two: (1) to prevent chronicity in nervous patients, (2) to prevent relapses in former mental patients. The first target, the ingathering of the long-term nervous patients, we can reach without outside aid. In this field expansion has proceeded successfully for 17 years and has recently gained momentum with such propelling force that our organization is represented in twelve states already. With regard to the nervous patients, expansion is a serious issue but it is happily on the way and needs merely to be pushed further along in the same direction in which we set it moving. With reference to the former mental patient, the situation is far less satisfactory, and it is here where we must not miss direction."
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PHIL: We have made good progress with this direction only in the past few years.
TREASURE: Here I must bring out, Phil, that you, more than anyone else (and sometimes as a lone voice) kept this issue alive in the minds of Recovery's leadership! Now My Dear Ones revives and underlines for everyone what you have spotlighted for us all these years. We owe you so much, Phil.
PHIL: Well, thank you. I am very gratified with the way we are moving in this direction. Of course, we've had to bide our time until the entire mental health movement began to catch up with Dr. Low's ideas.
TREASURE: That's true. But we have now instigated programs and geared ourselves to work in cooperation with the work only the professional can do. The combination of professional help and self-help is what is needed to prevent relapses -- which was the objective Dr. Low mentioned in this article. Our leadership is being trained to carry this out.
PHIL: Yes-- again, of course, it is the local person who must do the work at the group level. Dr. Low turned this expansion over to the membership, as you will remember. He removed himself as a participant, but said he would help us if we needed him.
TREASURE: This brings up the concept of "our work", the efforts of the volunteers. Next issue let's explore this subject.
PHIL: Fine, Treasure. It is a subject close to my heart.
