ARBOURS HOUSING ASSOCIATION

A Statement

by Dr. Joseph Berke

WHAT WE THINK

When people think someone is mentally ill, they treat him differently. They expect him to think, feel, and act as if he were ill; they regard what he says and does as signs of illness. To tell someone with a physical disease like a tumour that he is ill does not affect the course of his disease; to tell someone he is mentally ill affects him, and often leads him to enact his idea of mental illness.

Many people enter emotional crises when they start to discard roles others have allotted them. A person’s role can be his jail; bars surround, and are inside, him. What is called a psychosis is often a person’s confused refusal to comply with other’s views of him. To define it as an illness is to deny it may be his bid for freedom.

To call someone mentally ill, and to treat him as if he were ill, is to make him play a new part. He can become type-cast; being a chronic mental patient is a career. A child born in the United Kingdom is ten times more likely to be admitted into a mental hospital than a university.

A person is seen as being mentally ill because he breaks rules of those around him; he does not think feel or act “appropriately.” The mental illness is then regarded as a cause of his rule breaking. Families do not discuss many rules by which they live together; they may not even know the rules exist. But if someone breaks the rules it disturbs them. They may view the disturbing person as “disturbed”, or mentally ill, because he disturbs them. Persons who disturb others may find it find it hard to get somewhere to live outside of mental hospitals.

The person in a mental hospital often can not choose his goals, his space, how he spends his time and with whom. If he is an involuntary patient he can not leave. If he breaks hospital rules, he may be told that his illness makes him do it. If he finds the hospital fails to help him, he may be told he is too ill to appreciate its help. To be “cured” is often to be seen to conform.

Anyone seen as mentally ill, and called mentally ill, has a stigma. Former mental patients often find it hard to further their education or get jobs they want. We wish to drop that medical model for that class of behaviour for which no physical cause has been found, and which is called mental illness. We wish to give persons who have been, or could become, mental patients a chance not to be seen as mentally ill, or treated as if they were mentally ill.

To refuse to label certain experiences and behaviour as ill is not to fail to see they may be unusual. However, what is regarded as odd and bothersome in some social circles may not be in others. Many people seen as ill, need time, space, and encouragement to do, and be, more than they have been allowed before. We propose to make this possible.

WHAT WE PLAN

We plan to create a centre where people in emotional crises can go to live and to get help. The centre will be open to anyone regardless of depth of distress. Some residents will live there as an on-going community, because they wish, and are able, to help others in distress. Others, “guests” who need help, with live with them for limited periods. The guests will arrive and leave voluntarily; they will be free to hold outside jobs or not, to keep their own hours and to spend their own time as they like. They will arrange, or other residents will help them arrange, whatever outside professional or social help that they wish. Since crises are always within one individual, we expect a married couple, a parent and child, a whole family, or other small groups could be guests together at the centre. To help resolve interpersonal crises, residents might also visit homes of their guests.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE

We have lived in dwelling places set up for persons in emotional distress to live outside mental hospitals. We have made it possible for them to live in our own homes.We are giving those who wish to work with us experience in dealing with persons in distress.

We are holding lectures and discussions for those who want to learn about our ideas.

YOU CAN HELP US

- You can give us the benefit of your experiences and ideas where relevant. Ľ You can help us to obtain and furnish premises.

- You can give us financial aid: a donation, interest-free loan, deed of Covenant, Ľ Bequest of money or property.

- You can put us in touch with others who can help. Arbours Crisis Centre 41, Weston Park Ľ London N8 9SY 0208 340 825 (phone)

- 0208 342 8849 fax enquiries@arbourscentre.org.uk

- (website)