The ordinary …

Citation

(2012), "The ordinary …", Journal of Public Mental Health, Vol. 11 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jpmh.2012.55611aaa.001

The ordinary …

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Public Mental Health, Volume 11, Issue 1

Public health originated as the science of ordinary things: clean water pipes, warmer and drier homes, feeding infants well or taking some fruit on sea voyages. Mental health planning had to make a quantum leap, after hundreds of thousands of veterans returned from the First World War with a variety of psychological scars (Berrios and Freeman, 1991). These young adults could not be written off as, say, those patients with neurosyphilis languishing on the “back wards” of old asylums had been, because everyone knew someone who had gone to war fit and come back a broken person. It was such everyday experiences of distress (and a hope that mental disorders did not have to become permanent disabilities) that gradually began to transform professions: first psychiatry, psychology, nursing and then the fledgling disciplines of occupational therapy and social work. The memory of mass unemployment and civil unrest after the First World War meant that after the Second many countries emphasised education for returning veterans and a host of non-governmental organisations arose to advocate for social integration and support at local and national policy levels. The Welfare State was an enlightened initiative with multiple “benefits” to post-war health. Where economic crises are still tempered by welfare systems (Stuckler et al., 2009) people do better than in other countries with less welfare provision, when facing poverty, homelessness or unemployment.

In this issue, Bell illustrates the practical value to mental health of help with personal debt. In the UK’s present recession, this is a key population health issue! The majority of adults are in employment, although often in insecure and stressful situations. This year, for the first time, stress is the most common cause of long-term sickness absence (CIPD, 2011). Shephard and Caan describe here an instrument to monitor wellness at work and to identify which employees have critical levels of stress. Stress (and especially trauma) seems to have a cumulative effect over a life-course (Karban, 2011). MIND has reported that health services for people who have reached a point of crisis “are unfit for purpose” (Lakhani, 2011) and suicide is the biggest killer of young British men, with around 2,000 in a crisis phoning the helpline at the Campaign Against Living Miserably, each month (O’Hara, 2012). Rose and colleagues highlight the importance of trauma informed services, and unresolved traumas leave a lasting legacy that not only burdens the individual survivor but also their children (Carson, 2011). Very “ordinary” actions can promote coping and mental resilience. Here, Livesey and colleagues describe the benefits of choral singing. After Journal of Public Mental Health had accepted this paper for publication, an amateur choir of 100 Military Wives (2011) went on the be the Christmas Number One record in the UK, whose sales of over half a million CDs raised money for both struggling veterans and their families. The Defence Specialist Nursing Advisor in Mental Health has identified that the top concern of soldiers returning to the UK with “mental health issues” is relationships with their families (Giannangell and Randall, 2011). Last year, the Military Wives choir toured forces families at many bases, broadcast on BBC TV and Radio, and have been the inspiration for new choirs not just in military communities but also in some economically depressed industrial settings. In one case study, Macaulay shows the value of multi-media ideas in communicating about mental health issues, and with TV and internet use becoming familiar worldwide, public mental health practitioners can exercise their imaginations to the full.

This January, we must note the historic publication of the 200th volume of the familiar and much loved British Journal of Psychiatry (BJP). For almost that long period (e.g. in the family history work of Jean-Pierre Falret at the Salpetriere hospital) professionals researching psychotic illnesses have reported that certain patients showed subclinical, “prodromal” symptoms of illness for some time before their acute crisis requiring psychiatric admission. The January issue of BJP contains a wonderful example of disease prevention (Bechdolf et al., 2012). Early intervention using a multi-modal (individual, group and family) approach with young people showing prodromal, non-psychotic symptoms reduced the clinical onset of psychoses in the next two years from 20 per cent to only 6 per cent. Happy New Year!

The art of psychology

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  Cognitive science

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  Says forge an alliance

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  From the

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  Familiar

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  To the New.

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  At work, in song, on television

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  Use imagination

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  To turn

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  The Everyday

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  To the Now.