Senator Andrew Bartlett
Saturday, April 02, 2005
 
More on Mental Health + our Crowded House
Mental health has been discussed in a number of posts on this site and I remind readers that a Senate Committee has been established to have a comprehensive look at the issue. I am hopeful this Committee will be reasonably non-partisan and its members will work together to find ways to improve understanding, prevention and treatment of mental illness. If you are thinking of putting in a submission, the closing date is 28th April.

Next week’s ABC TV 4 Corners program will be about Cornelia Rau’s ordeal. The more I look at this case, the more I think the key issues arising from it are the failures in systems and attitudes around mental illness, rather than the issue of mandatory detention of asylum seekers – even though that practice is unnecessary and brutalising in its own right. As others have said, Ms Rau’s ordeal is sadly not very unique for many Australians who get caught up within the prison system. Former Liberal Senator, Chris Puplick, now a Professor of Health at the University of Wollongong, referred to a 2003 study published by New South Wales Corrections Health showing that among prisoners, the prevalence of psychosis was 30 times higher than within the broader Australian community! Another horrendous statistic - 78% of male and 90% of female reception prisoners were classified as having had a psychiatric disorder in the previous twelve months.

This all sits within a wider debate on depression and mental illness. This was brought home to many people this week with the very sad news of the suicide of former Crowded House drummer, Paul Hester. This is just one example of how very real an issue depression can be at an individual level and how big an impact it can have on others. The Crowded House song 'Don't Dream it's Over' is one of those recordings which, despite being very simple, is amazingly evocative. I associate a couple of different events with that song, and I guess I'll add this event. I read a good description of Paul Hester’s playing style – that he played the song rather than the beat – which I think is far more important than being a master technician on the kit. I always pay a bit of extra attention to the drummer, but he was obviously someone who touched a lot of music fans (which not all drummers do). There were many lamentations about his death on Australian blogs during the week, many of them simultaneously talking about depression and how serious it can be. For a sample, try Karma to Burn, Jellyfish Online, Ausculture and Piss & Vinegar. Some of the comments to these posts are also worth reading, many focusing just as much on depression as they do about Paul Hester.

On the in-flight TV coming back from the Committee hearing in Canberra this week, I watched the Andrew Denton interview with former test cricketer Michael Slater, part of which covered his recent diagnosis of bi-polar depression. The discussion about mental illness and how people react to it was instructive, including the difficulty many people have in talking about it. I have spoken and written a bit about my own experience with and views of depression. It is a difficult issue to speak about, as I am always torn between making it clear it is a 'normal' thing, whilst also urging that the potential seriousness of it be recognised. I am perplexed by this paradox within at least some areas of mental illness. Sometimes a condition or syndrome can be temporary and clearly disabling. Other conditions – or certain manifestations of them – seem to me to sometimes be an integral part of who someone is, which can have some positive components along with the negatives. For example, John Curtin is often rated Australia's greatest ever Prime Minister. Curtin suffered very severely from depression (and also had significant problems with alcohol) – would he have been even better without these ‘ailments’ or did they somehow, in the way they interacted with all his other qualities, actually play a part in making him such a great political leader? The same question could be asked of Winston Churchill.

I get concerned about an excessive trend to 'medicalise' some human conditions and turn them into disorders and illnesses – inherently negative things – rather than recognise that some things are part and parcel of the very varied nature of human personalities and have their positive sides. At the least, a person’s nature should be acknowledged as having inherent worth, rather than just seen as some sort of ‘damaged’ human. Of course, this has to be balanced against the risk of dismissing genuine psychological or psychiatric conditions as just insignificant personality quirks - or even worse, as irresponsible self-indulgence.

A passage in a recent posting on the Washington Monthly site by Kevin Drum included the comment:
“I suffer from chronic depression, though … it's obviously not debilitating. It just sucks. I chose long ago to mention this very seldom and to very few people. (If you're not sure why, go ahead and let your boss know that you're a chronic depressive and see what happens. For many people, their careers would be over.)”

This comment matches findings in a survey by Beyond Blue: the National Depression Initiative, that 36% of individuals believe that people with depression who worked in positions of high responsibility 'should quit their jobs'! Where would we be if John Curtin had followed that view? The matter of attitudes to mental health goes far beyond adequacy of services or funding and right to the heart of the potential for ignorance, fear and discrimination that is within all of us, and the impact this can have. In many ways this is more significant. It certainly is more difficult to address, but I think it is essential that we try.

I hope the Senate Inquiry can make a bit of headway in that area, adding to the work that groups like Beyond Blue and SANE have been doing in recent years.


UPDATE: Ambit Gambit gives a perspective on this issue, as does John Quiggin, who says that “we’ve had a string of inquiries into this issue, without, it seems, making much progress.” The record of inaction from the past certainly doesn’t inspire confidence and it is possible that the latest Senate Inquiry will see the same lack of progress as this comment on this posting fears. However, I know the potential is there for it to achieve some good things, so I feel obliged to maintain some hope in it.

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