“Lack Of Understanding Of Handicapped"

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 18

“Lack Of Understanding Of Handicapped"

The typical New Zealand reaction to anti-social behaviour was to demand that the offender pull himself together or to. administer the “universal cure of a clip over the ear,” but that revealed a sad lack of tolerance and acceptance, a city psychiatrist told the monthly meeting of the Christchurch Co-ordinating Council for the Handicapped. The community tended to judge behaviour in terms of social values. Although he was not against social values or standards, he believed the best way of'dealing with unsocial behaviour was to try to understand what caused it and why it occurred when it did.

This applied especially to the handicapped under the care of a rehabilitating organisation. Those treating a handicapped patient had to discover why he had, for example. a tantrum at a particular time, in order to help him to deal with his special emotional problems.

A physically or mentally handicaped person had a major programme of acceptance and readjustmentbeset with many emotional difficulties ranging through denial of the handicap and unrealistic feelings ot guilt, to a realisation and acceptance of the “sick” role in so far as it affected himself.

The way a person felt about his handicap was most important, and the attitudes of those around him were crucial in forming this into something which would enable him to act successfully both on working and social levels.

Too much emphasis was placed on getting a person “out to a job” rather than on teaching skills. It was little use

placing a person in a job if he could not handle social relationships with fellow workers.

The problem of tolerating the sub-normal and the mentally or physically handicapped was part of the general problem of overcoming prejudice. It was a matter of community education, the psychiatrist said.