Occupational Therapy in Mental Hospitals

It is a fairly new idea for us in our hospitals to introduce Occupational Therapy as part of the curative treatment for mental patients. In America, I believe, it has been adopted extensively and on a much more elaborate scale than we can hope to achieve here for some time. Nevertheless, it is evident that it is being recognised now as one of the necessary factors in the treatment of mental patients and a great asset in helping towards the recovery of those in the early stages of mental breakdown, such as are treated at Maudsley Hospital. I am dealing with this treatment primarily as for mental cases although it is also being used extensively for tuberculosis, mentally defective and disabled cases with splendid effect. Quite low grade defectives can produce marvellous work and the satisfaction they feel at being able to do something equally as well as their fellow men is enough justification for the long effort in training them. An unemployable boy of 17 had a glorious moment of pride when he won 2/6d. in a local open competition for his basket. However, that is another branch of the work that is not being dealt with here. The patients who come to Maudsley Hospital are all considered recoverable; therefore their stay at the Hospital is only for a limited time. In the acute stage of their illness, capacity for work is almost non-existent but as they pass to convalescence they can achieve quite an advanced stage in craft before they leave. There are other outlets for them as well, gardening, carpentry, office work, organised games and drill and sometimes singing classes are arranged for them, but the craft work is particularly beneficial for those who cannot leave the ward or who are not well enough to take part in the more strenuous sections. The idea of occupational treatment is to distract the patients' thoughts from their real or imaginary illnesses, to assist them in regaining their self-confidence and to counteract any tendency towards habits of laziness; also to discover if there is any latent ability towards craft or artistic work and to develop this so that the patients may have a practical and absorbing hobby to hold their interest and help them over difficult times after they have left the Hospital. This part of the work is entirely constructive?a building up and creating?which is important in helping to …