MENTAL HEALTH “Indifference Frightening”
(New Zealand Press Association)
NELSON, March 29. Statistics of the number of primary school children and university students who were psychologically maladjusted were not “scare figures,” the director of the Mental Health Division, Dr. S. W. P. Mirams, said today.
It was the indifference to the problem that was frightening, he said.
He was commenting on figures given recently by Professor W. Ironside, of the deparment of psychological medicine of the University of Otago. Professor Ironside said that 10 per cent of primary school children and 13 per cent of university students had mental disorders. Dr. Mirams said the figures would not be regarded as surprising or disproportionate in any other community with similar standards of sophistication and technological advancement.
“Professor Ironside was saying that any survey of a lot of children or young people would give about that percentage of youngsters who were psychologically maladjusted at the time.” said Dr. Mirams.
“Just what it means is another matter. It does not mean that percentage will be crippled if they don’t get treatment.
“It may well be that many will make satisfactory adjustments.
“One in 10 of our population requires some sort of professional help at some time of their lives,” he said. “The tragedy is that so often it is left to chance. In other fields what information like this could be regarded so complacently? “The answer, of course, is ‘none.’ “I don’t think anyone except a wild enthusiast will expect that this problem will be solved by psychologists. No service has ever been able to produce enough psychologists to cope with it. “There is no short answer,” he said. He urged better public education and more and better people in the mental health field and public understanding and participation.
“It is expensive. You can not expect to get the best cheaply.” said Div Mirams. He paid a tribute to Professor Ironside, who. he said, was dealing with part of the problem by injecting more psychiatry into the medical curriculum.
MENTAL HEALTH “Indifference Frightening”
Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 1
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