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 | You and Yours - Transcript BBC Radio 4 |
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| TX: 11.05.09 - Men's mental health PRESENTER: PETER WHITE |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WHITE Now today the mental health charity - MIND - is calling on the government to draw up plans to protect the mental health of men. While there's a women's mental health strategy in place in England there is no male equivalent, despite men being four more times more likely to commit suicide. Men are also more likely to use drugs and alcohol as a last resort when worried and less likely to visit their GP when they're feeling down. Well amongst their recommendations MIND wants to see more male friendly treatments on offer, like computerised therapy or exercise, services being advertised in gyms, pubs and offices and GPs' surgeries made gender neutral to avoid putting men off. Well Alistair Campbell who had a nervous breakdown when he was working as a journalist and suffers from depression is supporting the MIND campaign. Known for his robustness I asked him how easy it was for him to admit that he'd had a problem. CAMPBELL It was actually a psychiatrist, when I was in hospital, who made me face up to it and led me to face up to it, is a better way of putting it, he just made me realise really that I had a problem. And I hadn't really thought about getting help until then and I had no choice because of the circumstances. I mean to cut a long story short, I was arrested for my own safety and I was only allowed to leave if I saw - went to hospital. Even after that though I was very, very reluctant to get help, I was very reluctant to admit I had a problem. WHITE Do you buy this argument that that is a male response? CAMPBELL I think there's no doubt that men are less open about their feelings, they're less likely to burst out crying, they're less likely to say to their friends and family I think I've got a mental health problem. And men are just as likely as women to suffer from depression but half as likely to be diagnosed as having depression and that suggests that there's a lack of openness. I mean I have to say I know I'm in a privileged position - I've just launched this campaign with Stephen Fry, Melvyn Bragg, now we are in a very privileged position in being able to admit to our own frailties and problems, past, present and probably future because we just sort of operate in different kind of circles I guess to most people and I completely understand why somebody who's maybe applying for a job doesn't necessarily want to admit that they're on medication for depression or they have panic attacks, or whatever it might be. And I just think we - we'd all be better off if we could get to a position where people could just be more open without thinking that that's going to necessarily be unfairly held against them. WHITE Well stay with us a little longer Alistair. I've also been down to a men's support group in Corydon in South London, to find out what's on offer there and what service users think. I arrived just as their meeting was getting underway. ACTUALITY Alright guys, who's going to share out the biscuits? Harris. I want one of you guys to take Keith's role. Who's going to take up that mantle? DAVIS I'm Neville Davis, I'm a project worker at MIND in Corydon and facilitator in their men's group. The primary purpose of the group is to encourage the men to become more socially active. Talking about problems and helping each other along the way is part of the natural progress. So with the social activities and the relationships that are built the conversations come up and the men help themselves with our help. WHITE So who actually organises all that? DAVIS I help facilitate but it's the men themselves who sit down, they discuss, they say we should go here and they really follow what their interests are. ACTUALITY Do you have anything that you'd like to do for next week? We'd like to do some tennis. There's tennis courts over at Parkhill, 10 minute walk, free. WHITE Well the group's going on but Martin's nipped out for a cigarette, I've joined him. Can you just tell me a bit about what its benefit is for you? MARTIN We just organise different things to do every week and generally talk about any issues that have come up, anything that's funny, anything that's happened, anything in the news, anything that's interesting. Men talk about certain things with men that they don't talk about with women. WHITE When I came out you were talking about the Chelsea's penalties the other night that they got denied. MARTIN Absolutely gutted, yeah. WHITE The MIND report suggested that men find it more difficult to talk about mental health, what's your view about that? MARTIN All men, I feel, put a barrier up, they wait until they actually break down before they enter the mental health system as it were. Behind it they might be falling to pieces but it's only at the last minute when they actually break down that they get to the mental health services. WHITE Was that true of you? MARTIN Absolutely yeah. I was getting stressed, extremely stressed, trying to ignore that stress and in the end I couldn't, I ended up in a mental hospital, several times. It sort of ended up that basically it had to wait until I was trying to commit suicide before I ended up getting some help, you know. WHITE And you were what working on this kind of idea that men are supposed to sort these things out and pull their socks up and ...? MARTIN You try to ignore it, try and block it out. I guess that women will, when they're feeling stressed and under the weather or whatever, they'll get to their GP pretty quick and start to get things sorted whereas men try to put on a brave face really. WHITE Well the meeting's still going on, Martin's finished his cigarette, so we'll pop back in. PACITTI My name's Richard Pacitti, I'm the chief executive of MIND in Croyden. WHITE Tell me about this group, what the purpose of starting it was. PACITTI Well it came from the men themselves. We'd had a women's group for a long time and the men said well hold on a minute, what about us, we want to talk about things that we don't want to talk about in front of women. WHITE And what do you find are the things that people - that they do tend to talk about? PACITTI Sometimes they'll be talking about things like how their mental health problem or the medication that they're receiving affects their sex lives, the sort of things that they would find it very difficult to talk about in front of women. WHITE What do you think is the long term significance of people not perhaps getting help? PACITTI Well the worry always is that if you don't get help early on then that problem can become worse. Men tend to be more represented at the heavier end of the psychiatric system and perhaps that's the reason why. WHITE And the evidence does suggest, doesn't it, that men don't go to the first calling place - the GP's surgery - do you know any reasons for that? PACITTI Quite often if you go to the GP's surgery they do seem to be more geared up for the needs of women and families. There will be lots of posters up about breast feeding and things like that and perhaps they're not the sorts of places where men might feel comfortable. WHITE Is there a tendency in the health service itself to regard, even unconsciously, mental health issues as a women's problem? PACITTI Men admitting that they're depressed or anxious is something they find difficulty in doing. Perhaps the health service hasn't accepted this. There is a strategy for women's mental health and women only services are in the national service framework but there's nothing that talks about specialist provision for men. So I think to some extent that the special needs of women within the mental health system have been flagged up but the same doesn't seem to be true of men. WHITE Well lunch is going on in the background and I'm with Terry. Why do you come to this group? TERRY The worst thing for a person with mental health problems is to be living on their own. It's a question of either climbing the walls or talking to the walls. And it's nice to come to a group where people have the same understandings of things. WHITE So do the men at this group talk about their problems or do they talk about the fact that Chelsea should have had more penalties or the latest round of golf? TERRY Once you get friendly and confident with people you can talk about things when it's not going to be used against you. There used to be a pride with having a job, in this recession now there's going to be more mental health problems. Men aren't used to being at home and it's all very well them saying oh join this, join that, you'll get a job, you won't get a job because if you've had a mental illness there's a lot of prejudice out there. You can talk to the men in the men's groups, I mean some of them have got terrible mental health problems and we all club together and try and help each other out a bit you know. WHITE Terry, talking to me at the Corydon men's health group. Alistair Campbell is listening to that. It's interesting that Terry was making that point about jobs and work and the MIND report places a big emphasis on the economic downturn but of course that hits everyone doesn't it - women as well as men? CAMPBELL It does but I think that perhaps in the male psyche there is still the whole business of feeling that you have to be the bread winner, I'm not saying that it's not the same for women but I think that perhaps it's more intense for a man and according to the MIND report I think one in seven of men who lose their job will actually end up suffering from depression within six months. Now I thought what was also interesting in there was the guy who was making the point about women being more likely to go to the GP. When I left hospital in 1986 I actually didn't even have a GP, it was when Fiona - my partner - started to feel the kind of stress of living with me was actually beginning to affect her that she went to her GP and it was as a result of that that I got to know him and he became very, very important in my recovery. WHITE There are a number of recommendations that MIND makes, what would you say, from your experience, would be the most significant thing that could be done to help men? CAMPBELL I think a lot of this is about public awareness. Some people who suffer mental health problems say that actually the discrimination, which again was referred to you in your report there, is worse than the symptoms of the illness. I think so far as government is concerned, I mean I think Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, really gets this area and I think he does a terrific job and I think actually the government's record is a very, very good one. But I think that the point you made right at the top of the programme about the need maybe for a strategy focused at men and mental health, in the same way as has been done for women, I think that is a very important starting point. WHITE Alistair Campbell. And this is how the Department of Health responded to the MIND initiative. Carolyn you've got some response from them. ATKINSON Yes they say they're committed to improving services and promoting mental well being for everyone - men and women. We have commissioned the Men's Health Forum, they say, to identify specific mental health needs of men and we expect its report this summer. It'll build on the findings from MIND and show us what more needs to be done to improve mental health support for men in particular. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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