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Social prescribing of coffee mornings, singing and dance have been around for half a century or more, certainly in social psychiatric settings.
Anyone lucky enough to have seen the life enhancing effects of these initiatives, in wards for chronic and elderly patients, at Dingleton Hospital, Melrose, inspired by Maxwell Jones, needs no convincing of the benefits. (1)
Others, like David Clark at Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, continued his good work. (2)
Children and adults from the local communities sometimes added to the jollity.
Perhaps the benefits of two other pillars of effective therapeutic communities -- namely, multiple leadership, and group meetings which encourage horizontal and vertical communication -- may also be in need of rediscovery.
1 Maxwell Jones, Beyond the Therapeutic Community, Yale, 1962.
2 David Clark , Social Therapy in Psychiatry, Penguin, 1974.
Re: Social prescribing: coffee mornings, singing groups, and dance lessons on the NHS
Social prescribing of coffee mornings, singing and dance have been around for half a century or more, certainly in social psychiatric settings.
Anyone lucky enough to have seen the life enhancing effects of these initiatives, in wards for chronic and elderly patients, at Dingleton Hospital, Melrose, inspired by Maxwell Jones, needs no convincing of the benefits. (1)
Others, like David Clark at Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, continued his good work. (2)
Children and adults from the local communities sometimes added to the jollity.
Perhaps the benefits of two other pillars of effective therapeutic communities -- namely, multiple leadership, and group meetings which encourage horizontal and vertical communication -- may also be in need of rediscovery.
1 Maxwell Jones, Beyond the Therapeutic Community, Yale, 1962.
2 David Clark , Social Therapy in Psychiatry, Penguin, 1974.
Competing interests: No competing interests