/continued...
But let’s not mistake the purpose of this book: it is a coming-of-age tale about a young man’s maturing relationships – with other people and society at large. This young man has a lot of maturing to do – and that also is pretty true-to-life. The book paints a subjective picture of a peculiar world seen through the eyes of a peculiar boy – two “peculiar” boys, in fact: one a patient, one a nurse. Why was it written? Because the author feels that this hidden world, for all its “peculiarity”, deserves revealing to the public gaze. Does the book accurately portray the situation across the country as it was in 1961, let alone today? The author doesn’t know. He would like to think that things have got better, but what he hears from people with more recent knowledge does not reassure him.
A lot of names for things have changed. When something has failed miserably in the past, if you change its name the problem vanishes without you having to spend too much to remedy it. “Mental nurses” (and some were, too!) are now “mental health nurses”. “Voluntary patients” (few were) are now “informal patients”. Both “formal” and “informal” patients are now “service users”. Stigma attaches to names, especially diagnostic names. In 1961 “cretin” and “mongoloid” were officially sanctioned terms. Even “lunatic” (blame the moon, not the sufferer) was once a euphemism for “madman”. But though you change the name, stigma doesn’t take long to catch up. As the Danes say: you can move house to escape it – but the goblin comes too.
It follows...