Articles About The Centre

Last Sunday, the BBC1 Everyman programme on mental hospitals drew viewers' attention to a frightening
statistic: about 10 per cent of t he population can expect to be admitted to a mental hospital or unit at some time in their lives.

The official source of this figure is the DHSS Mental Health Enquiry for England 1976. And from their report supplied to MIND, the National Association for Mental. Health, it is clear that the exorbitant cost of mental illness is equally alarming. For example, 30 million working days were lost through "mental disorders" in 1974/5 (even this figure is called "an underestimate"); and over 27 million sedatives, tranquillisers and anti-depressants alone were dispensed by GPs in 1977, totaling nearly £30 million.

There is, however, a strong conviction that a viable alternative exists to mental hospitals and drugs for treating the emotionally disturbed. It can be found among a team of doctors working for a little-known mental health charity called The Arbours Association. Founded ten years ago in London by a group composed mainly of American and British psychotherapists and psychiatrists, its members shun the institutionalised and alienating atmosphere of the mental hospital and all the conventional forms of treatment such as physical restraint, shock treatment (ECT) or psychosurgery.

Their solution? Very basically, a chain of households, operated and manned by qualified psychotherapists and social workers where people in emotional distress can go for help and to live. And where, in a calm, controlled atmosphere, they can be made to feel whole again.

The focal point of the Arbours work is their Crisis Centre, a comfortable, unobtrusive house in a quiet North London street. It is here that the significance of the group's name best comes into its own. The temporary dwelling places where the Israelites lived in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt were called "arbours" - places of shade or shelter. The crisis centre provides those threatened by sudden mental and social breakdown with an immediate and intensive personal shelter in the form of support and accommodation. Later on, if necessary, a person can transfer to one of the organisation's

three long-stay communities, assisted by doctors and social workers, but run on a self-support basis.

Psychotherapist Dr Joseph Berke is a co-founder of the Arbours who, like other members of the group originally worked with Ronald Laing, the Scottish psychiatrist. "We call this crisis intervention," he told me. "Many people who come here feel depressed and suicidal, but after a stay of about a week, they usually feel much, better. We aim to develop a supportive relationship without becoming intrusive or overbearing. Both the building and the therapists provide help by serving as temporary containers for intolerable fear, rage, confusion and criticism."-

The centre's carefully structured "life support" system means that a guest (the word "patient" is never used) can do whatever he feels will best help him to resolve his problems; sit, read, talk for 24 hours at a stretch - or simply sleep. Everyone - even a whole family is welcome. "We are non-denominational," Dr Berke emphasises, "and we have had many Jews here, observant and non-observant, working class to wealthy."

David Glass, a businessman, communal worker and former director of the Jewish National Fund has been closely associated with the Arbours for the past three years. He founded the Project Arbours Group, today a committee of nine years which has to date raised, nearly £40,000 annual fund-raising functions. It was David's aid group that provided funds for re-housing the Arbour's crisis centre. His faith in the Arbours methods is strong. "People have seen with their own eyes emotionally distressed persons fail to be cured by conventional medical treatment, but come out of the Arbours well and happy. I'd much rather see an attempt at treatment by the spoken word - there's time for medical methods afterwards," he says.

Dr Berke has written several books on the mentally disturbed, including a 1977 hardback, "The Butterfly Man," in which he describes his work at the Arbours. It has now been reprinted in paperback form and retitled, "I haven't had to go mad here." This quote is from an open letter of thanks to the Arbours, written by Sylvia, a middle-aged schoolteacher. Through their sanctuary she found peace of mind. J.M.