Reporting back on the Oral History Society's 2008 Conference, "WHO
CARED? ORAL HISTORY, CARING, HEALTH AND ILLNESS: Marking 60 years of the
National Health Service" held in the Medical School of the University of
Birmingham, July 4-5 2008.
It is difficult work putting together a conference presentation, and a
lot of things can happen between the "Yes" of having a paper accepted
and the "Whew" of having presented it. A phenomenal eleven abstracts
were accepted for the therapeutic community strand of the recent Oral
History Society's annual conference, and a not bad seven (a little over
10% of all the papers given) made it over the finishing line.
John Adams, Gary Winship and Matthew Bowen presented papers in a very
stimulating session which could easily have run over time with
discussion, and kept a number of people behind enthusiastically talking
and following up. Their papers were "The elephant in the room: physical
and pharmacological therapies at Fulbourn Psychiatric Hospital, 1950 -
1970"; "Collective biography: The psychosocial and therapeutic
community legacy of Annie Altschul, Hildegard Peplau, and Eileen
Skellern"; and "Dialogue and Play: relationship, good practice and
learning among clinical staff in an NHS democratic therapeutic
community" respectively, the latter about Matthew's work at the
Henderson Hospital. It gave us an opportunity to raise the profile of
the Henderson, and share a bit of what is happening there.
In another session, Trish Thomas and Joanne Williams of House 48 in
Bognor Regis gave an audio and video presentation titled "'The staff are
making candles again': 15 years of therapeutic relationships and
PsychOTic videos from a house in Bognor", featuring "The Wizard of Bog"
patient/staff made film on the transition from long-term psychiatric
hospitalisation to care in the community. Clinical Psychologist Maddy
Loat shared her research from the Cassel Hospital (soon to be a book) in
a presentation titled "'Sharing the Struggle': An exploration of mutual
support processes in a therapeutic community."
In the last paper session of the weekend, which nevertheless had a fair
number of people in audience, I gave a paper entitled "'How do we know
who cared? And what they cared for?' A life story approach to archives
of therapeutic environments and the people who saved them", a version of
which is on the blog ( http://news.pettarchiv.org.uk/ ); and in a paper
on the kind of provision against which the early therapeutic community
pioneers were reacting, Carole Reeves spoke of "Finding the Lost
Children of Craig-y-nos", a tuberculosis hospital in Wales which
flourished after the Second World War.
Next year's conference is being held at the University of Strathclyde,
and is on "The 'Voice'" (which gives a lot of scope for). I know Trish
Thomas and Joanne Williams are already planning their paper. I think
it's a very good thing to get 'therapeutic community' out into a
different and wider world in this way, and especially one which will
tend to be pretty sympathetic.
How about: "Political Challenge and Therapeutic Community: The 'Voice'
of staff and residents in the history and campaign to save the
Henderson Hospital"
or "Voiced silence: An oral history approach to service users who cut
themselves, by service users."
or something. It's an area where I think therapeutic communities have a
lot to say.
all the best,
Craig
--
Dr. Craig Fees, RMSA
Archivist
Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre
Hon. Director, Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments (a research and study centre of the University of Birmingham)
Church Lane
Toddington near Cheltenham
Glos. GL54 5DQ
United Kingdom
01242 620125
http://www.pettarchiv.org.uk
Keep up to date with Archive News, Events and Recent Accessions: The Archive and study Centre blog at http://news.pettarchiv.org.uk/
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