PART VIII: Significance of The Retriever - Early Recovery Newspaper

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TREASURE: Phil, I have become very interested in Recovery's first self-help publication, "The Retriever". Since we mentioned it in a previous article, I've done some research and I'm sure our readers would like to learn more about the beginnings of what we know today as The Recovery Reporter.

PHIL: Yes, I really think they would find it interesting. Writing this series has recalled to me how excited we were about our creative efforts in gathering the news, editing, writing, mimeographing, and distributing our little paper on the wards of the Psychiatric Institute when I was a patient there in 1941.

TREASURE: From what I've read, Dr. Low was also pretty excited about this self-help development, wasn't he?

PHIL: He sure was! He was so pleased that we had the initiative to go ahead with the project and he felt it was quite an accomplishment that we were able to involve nearly every patient, even if they only said a few words that we could print in The Retriever. Four of us acted as the "news gatherers"--my title was, "head news gatherer". We did our news gathering at breakfast, lunch, dinner, when movies were shown, and at the social gatherings when members of our families would visit us. And, of course, we did some news gathering right on the wards talking with individual patients about things we thought might be of interest to our readers.

TREASURE: I'm simply fascinated with some of the articles I've read in The Retriever, and particularly with the humor. I just can't resist sharing this one with our readers. It was called, "Approved Etiquette For Guests Attending the Friday Teas".

1. Stand by the door with a cup of tea in one hand and a sandwich in the other so the guests can see at a glance that there are free eats.
2. In winding up the greeting a variety of facial expressions can be used such as arched eyebrows, friendly smile, homely grin, or glint in the eye-depending upon how charming the guest is.
3. Guests bringing their own food must share with other guests. Do not let guests take home the dishes. Suggest that we want the dishes to welcome them with next week.
4. If guests spill tea, don't make them clean the floor. Just call Mike R. and he will be glad to do it, (we are using initials for last names since we cannot get permission from these individuals on such short notice to use full names).
5. Always remember to make sure that nurses have enough to eat. Miss M. and Miss J. especially are shy after about the third and fourth helpings.

From Vol. I, No. 8, 1941 of The Retriever

TREASURE: I loved the tongue-in-cheek approach of this little sample. Of course, there were also more serious articles.

PHIL: Yes, often they dealt with one of the meetings conducted by Dr. Low-we would sum-up the concepts he had emphasized at the meeting.

TREASURE: Before we use up all of our space again, Phil, let's share with the members Dr. Low's thoughts about The Retriever. In some of his writings, he mentions so many of the self-help ideas that he connected with the publication of The Retriever.

PHIL: One of the articles he wrote about it appeared in "Lost and Found", Vol.4, No.4 which was the official publication while Recovery was still with the Psychiatric Institute of the University of Illinois. It's a fairly long article so we won't be able to include all of it in this issue, but will continue it in the September-October issue of The Reporter".

TREASURE: I'm sure Recovery members will value Dr. Low's basic concepts as he brought them out in these articles. To me, it's like touching home base when we go back to our origins as an organization and hear what our founder thought about some of the things we take for granted today. In the next issue, I would like to continue our discussion along this line.

PHIL: Fine with me, Treasure. See you then!

The Self-Help Spirit Enters The Wards The vitality of a process is best demonstrated by the fact that it continues to proceed. A development that has reached the end of its road has spent its force, moves into the past and becomes history. Recovery, although incessantly making history, also continues to make news and to live in a moving present. Recent developments among the ward patients bear eloquent testimony to this fact. Recovery means self-directed aftercare; hence, self-help. It was revolutionary to think of self-help in connection with former mental patients. The dictum of "once mentally ill, always mentally ill" expressed clearly the current sentiment: The mental patient - present or former - could not be helped by anybody or anything, least of all by himself. He was doomed, "once a patient, always a patient." Recovery shattered this time honored dogma of helplessness and established the reality of self-help. The former patient was thus vindicated. But the vindication did not extend to the present patient who was held confined to the ward. Two or three months ago, this writer would not have dared thinking of ward patients in terms of self-help. Mary West, Florence Weber, Arthur Crary, Phil Crane and a goodly dozen others who came under their influence thought otherwise, either in ignorance or defiance of the writer's view. As this issue goes to press they are still on the ward, receiving treatment. But that treatment is hospital-administered and clearly distinguished from the self-administered variety introduced by Recovery, Inc. Mary, Florence, Phil and Arthur knew the distinction. They attended group psychotherapy classes and weekly evening parties and there met the discharged patients of the Fortnightly, Companions and other clubs. While dancing and chatting with the former patients they were exposed to the contagion of self-help, and the inoculation "took." As a result, a new technique of self-administered care was evolved. What the ward patients did was to start a newspaper. Whether ward patients have ever before done anything of this kind is unknown to the writer. Presumably, it is a novelty. Newspapers as such, however, are nothing new in mental institutions. In Illinois, for instance, most state hospitals have their sheets, usually monthlies. But look at any of them and you will realize the difference between a hospital-directed and a self-directed periodical. At the Psychiatric Institute, every line is written by and for the ward patients. Every other newsheet that has come to our attention has the unmistakable imprint of outside management. If it is added that our sheet is a weekly and not a monthly as in most other hospitals, the distinction becomes more accentuated. But all of this is insignificant; a self-directed paper may be inferior to a hospital-directed publication and a poorly managed weekly does by no means score over a well edited monthly. The point is that the ward patients, in launching their weekly, developed a valuable aid for treatment. Indeed, we are inclined to call it a new therapeutic technique. In order to explain the importance of the innovation it will be necessary to say a few words about the defect which the weekly, if successful, is destined to remedy. In an active institution, ward life moves at a relatively lively pace at some hours and is a deadly ghastliness at other hours. At the Psychiatric Institute, the patients are kept busy daily for several hours with gymnastic exercises, volleyball, occupational therapy, hydrotherapy, group psychotherapy classes, tests, and chemotherapy and individual psychotherapy. This seems to be a formidable program and actually keeps the patients in continuous motion between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. At 4:30, dinner is served, and after that official activity ceases. The patients are then thrown on their own resources. But the resources are meager and the hours between 5 and 9 P.M. are the epitome of monotony and boredom. In former years, we were aware of the undesirability of leaving patients unoccupied for such an extended stretch of time but were unable to cope with the situation. We consoled ourselves with the reflection that most of the patients were either stuporous, hallucinating and delusional or in some other way out of contact with environment. And the current assumption was that where contact was lacking there was no room for boredom. To express it otherwise: Since the majority of patients lacked ambition, interest and curiosity, they could hardly be bored. This was more or less true in the days before the shock treatments were introduced. After their introduction, the picture changed. Formerly, patients improved slowly or did not improve at all. Today, they improve quickly and in far larger numbers. As a result, we have now many more improved or improving patients on the wards than in the past. These patients, in their various stages of improvements, are exposed to the effects of boredom. Experienced psychiatrists will tell you that mental patients who do not improve seldom yawn. They are withdrawn, hence, neither interested nor bored. In the past five years, the yawning has become a well know phenomenon on wards in which intensive treatment is given. The patients improve, become interested in life, and are bored by the lack of life on the ward. As mentioned, boredom is the particular curse of the early evening hours. (to be continued)

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