MENTAL HEALTHMANSHIP .
SIR,--My attention has• recently been drawn to the • article `Mental Healthmanship in your • issue , of January 18, and, as I am the "Mr. S.' quoted therein, may I clarify one or two misapprehensions; obviously made in good faith.
Firstly, as no one likes the •epithet `eccentric,' .im- plying,as ito:does a lack of balance, its ascription to ,, me calls for repudiation. During a period of domestic discord (that culminated through .the intervention of an official in my unjust incarceration h State hospital)-I took precautions, where I was living at that time, to protect my belongings from.rnalicious . damage, and such measures were unfortunately and mistakenly construed as symptoms of eccentricity rather than of prudince : hence the fallacy:
Secondly, I was said to have a grievance. There was certainly no point in my maintaining. a grievance against one with an innate disposition for ,irrational conduct, and I should like to make. it perfectly clear that, prior to my wrongful detention with its un- doubted punitive aspect, no bee, at any time, buzzed in my bonnet.
Thirdly, there is the implication of my being 'an elderly and penurious relative,' Admittedly, I do not pay supertax. Nor am I, on the other hand, notably indigent. As a matter of sober fact, never in my life have I had any recourse whatsoever to the bene- fits of the Welfare State; though, of course, I regu- larly pay my contributions:As for niy being elderly, if that is intended to mean 'about to cross the thres- hold of senility, then that, too, is apt to be misleading, beCause it will be many years before I qualify, under the Anno Domini clause, for the old-age pension.
While on this puzzling subject of 'Mental Health- manship' I wonder whether you could enlighten me on what appears to me. as a layman, a paradoxical situation. Why do we have Mental Health Officers and not Physical Health Officers or, indeed, Spiritual Health Officers? Is not prevention better than cure?
I should like, in conclusion, to mention how grate- ful I am to the influential champions, zealous of personal liberty, who have ventilated my extremely disturbing experience. They have given freely of their valuable time. I still live in hopes that the iniquitous order for my detention, in the. full enjoy- ment of physical and mental fitness, may yet be annulled as a grave error.—Yours faithfully.
'MR. S.'
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