Alcoholics Bill
Sir, —You are putting the cart before the horse when you suggest that the Alcoholics Bill would "compel the provision of better facilities” and “encourage specialisation.” The mental hospitals are necessary for hopeless cases, and good places for those who are going to get well soon, but for. stubborn mental illness, of which alcoholism is just one symptom, the present lack of facilities and specialisation—deliberate Health Department policymakes the prospect gloomy. A law to send more people into this situation would be lamentable. Psychiatry wedded psychoanalysis 60 years ago, and remained in lethargic euphoria until, in its dotage, it fell in love with the miracle drugs, which make few cures. Practical psychological methods, such as behaviour therapy (Alcoholics Anonymous seeks to alter behaviour), are shunned by the medical profession because dosing with mysticism and patent medicines demands no special training.—Yours, etc., VARIAN J. WILSON. August 9, 1966.
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Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31134, 10 August 1966, Page 14
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149Alcoholics Bill Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31134, 10 August 1966, Page 14
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