PART IX: Demonstrating Averageness & the Importance of The Retriever
 |
If you do not have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader
to access the PDF on the left, |
PHIL: We'll have to cut our article short again this time, Treasure, to leave room for more of Dr. Low's article about our first self-help publication called The Retriever.
TREASURE: His views are most interesting, especially his comments about how this activity was helping the patients on the wards.
PHIL: Of course, to get a clear picture everyone must understand that what we did was completely separate from the professional treatment all of us were getting at that time. I was very much aware of the fact that I still needed treatment, if I was going to continue to improve and possibly be discharged from the hospital. We were not allowed to instruct or teach our fellow patients. We simply demonstrated.
TREASURE: Exactly how was this done?
PHIL: Probably the most important principle we demonstrated was averageness; that it is still average to have a mental illness, just as it is average to have pneumonia, asthma or any other physical illness. For instance, on the wards, talking directly to patients I would tell them how I was beginning to accept my mental illness as average and beginning to look at my delusions with more objectivity, that is, more the way Dr. Low and the resident physicians might look at them.
TREASURE: You were demonstrating something to yourself too, weren't you? I've noticed that when we discuss a Recovery principle, we listen to ourselves as we say the words. This fortifies our own beliefs, but did the other patients always accept what you said?
PHIL: Of course they didn't. We were told not to try to influence them in any direct way, but because we were newsgathering for The Retriever we would encourage them to say a few words. Let's say a woman patient might say that her husband was coming to the movies to be shown that night in the Activities Room, and that she was going to try to look real pretty for him.
TREASURE: I see, so you would put that statement in The Retriever that "she was going to try to look real pretty". This would demonstrate that she was probably making some effort to get well.
PHIL: That's right! This "news".."in Print" somehow helped us to demonstrate not only to her but to the others, that she was improving. It helped her to look at her illness a bit more objectively.
TREASURE: I think I see more plainly than ever before how we help ourselves and others as we do some of our organizational work. This paper called The Retriever was brought into being as a means of self-help . Just think of the opportunities if afforded this woman: She would have a chance, first to say it, to listen to her own words, then to read it in The Retriever, (we all like to see ourselves "in print"). No doubt there would be even some discussion among all of you after the paper came out about the contents. And certainly there was realistic pride that such a publication could be started, and managed by patients.
PHIL: Dr. Low brings this out in his article, I believe, so let's stop here and leave plenty of room for his words on the subject.
TREASURE: Very good. In the next issue, Phil, I would like to find out a bit more about those relatives who did visit the activities at the hospital and then also how you were finally able to demonstrate this healthy attitude towards mental illness outside the hospital during those days when there was much more stigma attached.
PHIL: Find with me. I'll talk with you then.
NOTE: Following is the completion of Dr. Low's article, "The Self-Help Spirit Enters the Wards". The first part of this article can be found in Dialogue Part VIII .
|
The Self-Help Spirit Enters The Wards (cont'd) At the Psychiatric Institute, we racked our brains in an effort to banish the evening boredom from the wards but were at a loss to find a remedy. Then the patients themselves took a hand and founded the ward weekly. You will ask how a weekly of no more than five standard-size pages can supply work and fan the interest of dozens of patients. This question of how things are possible although they seem to be impossible applies to all activities initiated or inspired by Recovery. The answer is that prior to the advent of Recovery little was known about the basic needs of the recovered patient. Today we know that his instinctive craving is for self-guidance, self-expression and self-help. That this was also the deep seated ambition of the "merely improving' patient we did not know until the weekly was founded. Immediately, the ward hummed with activity. One wrote, another typed, a third stenciled, a fourth sorted the paper, and all of them read the finished product, read and read and re-read, and when you look around and listened, a message of self-expression and self-regard was unmistakably conveyed to you. Mike commented on what John had written and John was proud of his contribution and inquired whether his statement was right and defended it against the one who declared it wrong. In the beginning it was a rather chaotic thing, borne by much enthusiasm but not carried by a solid organization. Then management was introduced and tasks assigned. Some patients were commissioned to serve as news-gatherers on their wards, other undertook to be copyreaders, and a few became feature writers and columnists. Whether the news as significant and the columns stimulating did not matter. The material was always interesting since it portrayed that highly vital topic: life on the ward. The weekly was truly the "patient's own," self-managed, self-directed, self-expressing. The quality of the weekly cannot be described in a few brief sentences; it can merely be stated to be stimulating, interesting, lively and surprisingly well written. If you wish to verify this verdict you will have to read any of the ten issues which have appeared at this writing. But the quality does not matter, either. What matters is that a drowsy ward was transformed into place pulsating with life and that boresome idleness was converted into animated activity. That the weekly--its name is The Retriever - is self-supporting is merely in line with Recovery tradition. When it was started the department of Psychiatry offered to cover the cost of paper and printing but the patients refused Instead, they sold the copies to their own relatives and friends, the sales price ranging from one cent up. At present, the revenue derived from the sales is sufficient to defray the cost both of the paper and the Friday afternoon tea party. The experience which we had when the recovered patients founded Recovery repeated itself when the ward patients founded their paper. The spirit of self-help created initiative and resourcefulness, a sense of responsibility and the pride of accomplishment. On our wards, the watchword is now self-direction. But there is a contingent of patients who are not amenable even to outside guidance, let alone self-direction. Some are stuporous, others impulsive, delusional, hallucinating, withdrawn, untidy. They could not be expected to enter into the spirit of self-help. Yet, they belong to the ward, and the writers and editors of The Retriever decided that if their program was to be successful the record must not be spoiled by those patients who had no tendency to improve. When they were asked what precisely was their program they replied that impulsive actions, explosions, tantrums and disturbed behavior in general were to be brought under control by the patients themselves. The fact is that, in the past weeks, disturbed patients were in several instances calmed down by other patients. It is also a fact that disturbances, explosions and tantrum behavior were reduced to an astonishing degree since the introduction of the paper. This decided improvement in the general conduct of our patient population, of course, may be sheer coincidence, but it may also be the direct result of the new spirit of self-direction. In a subsequent issue of Lost And Found a final appraisal of the new situation will be offered. For the present, we merely wish to record the observation that lately many a patient who became sulky, obstreperous and resistive was "brought under control" by the gentle intervention of another patient who felt responsible for the behavior of the ward as a group and shivered at the possibility that the "record" might be spoiled. This is undoubtedly evidence of self-management and self-discipline. When the discharged recovered patients instituted their system of self-administered aftercare we thought we had reached a climax. In those not far distant days the suggestion that self-direction might be transferred to ward patients would have aroused laughter. Today, this utopia is moving toward realization and will presumably yield a well-devised system of well-administered ward care . We do not know how far the development will lead us. This much we do know: it has already produced concrete accomplishments. By this, we do not merely refer to the weekly, the tea party and the tendency to have patients calm and guide other patients. What we have in mind is the spirit of initiative and resourcefulness which has already resulted in a veritable outpour of new suggestions and developments. Hardly a day passes now but one patient or another proposes improvements and additions to the system of self-care. Some are pertinent; others are impracticable or too daring. But all point in the direction of a wholesome spirit, which bids fair to bring forth an endless, self-perpetuating crop of ideas, plans and practice. A detailed account of the projects, already initiated and those merely proposed will be given in a subsequent issue.
|
