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when we were children and growing up; thus we tend to behave to persons in
authority as we did to our parents and teachers; to our fellow workers as we did
to our brothers and sisters at home or our school-fellows at school. In married
life the patterns of childhood are similarly evident; the submissive secluded
schoolgirl who was denied her mother's love becomes in later life the dependent
wife who regards her husband as a substitute father; the bullying domineering
tyrannical boy rebelling in childhood against over-harsh standards becomes the
cruel, brutal husband. Do you recognise yourself in any of these patterns?
We become so habituated to the patterns of conduct which minimise the
anxiety of threatened rejection that we become ' conditioned ' as in ' brainwashing
' or insensitive to the niceties of the good influences in other people,
to the subtleties of expression and innuendo in their voices, and to the quirks
and twists in their actions—usually to our own detriment; this insensitiveness
comes on because we are not sufficiently emotionally mature or generousminded
enough to realise that we would suffer no hurt by accepting a different
viewpoint or line of action. We develop a selective inattention whereby
unconsciously we ' miss ' all sorts of things which would cause us embarrassment.
Summary.
When you feel cross or hurt or angry or just plain stubborn pause a moment
and ask yourself ' What is the cause of my anxiety and what episode in my
upbringing has given rise to this reaction? ' If you can bring yourself to do
this in the middle of your bad temper I feel sure you will cool off pretty quickly
and you will be sorry that you allowed your emotions to overcome your good
sense.
By understanding the reasons for your behaviour you can avoid embarrassing
situations and save yourself the anxiety from having to retract or climb
down. So you will learn to prevent mental illness.
Acknowledgements.
I am indebted to a number of authors and publications for material for
this part of the report and especially to two books available in the Twickenham
Library, ' How to Understand Yourself and Other People,' by H. C. Lindgren,
and ' Emotional Problems of Living,' by O. S. English and G. H. J. Pearson.
THE DISEASES AND DISABILITIES OF OLD
AGE
A Survey of the Over 60's.
During 1954 I assisted a colleague with a research on the medical problems
of old age. In 1952 my friend Dr. R. C. F. Smith, Medical Officer of Health of
Sunderland Rural and Boldon Urban District, conceived the idea of undertaking,
in a circumscribed district, a thorough physical examination of the men and
women over 60 years of age to see how healthy they were or what diseases and
disabilities they suffered from. He asked me if I would do the statistical work
and I agreed.
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