Search results

The purpose of this paper is to report on the development and results of the Mental Health Inclusion Index.

Data gathering and interviews with key policy makers in 30 countries in Europe (the EU28 plus Switzerland and Norway). Data gathered enabled the production of an 18 indicator benchmarking index ranking the 30 countries based on their commitment to integrating people with mental illness.

The main findings were: mental illness exacts a substantial human and economic toll on Europe, and there is a substantial treatment gap, especially for people with common mental health problems. Germany’s generous social provision and strong healthcare system put it number one in the Mental Health Integration Index. The UK and Scandinavian states come next. The lowest-scoring countries in the index are from Europe’s south-east, where there is a long history of neglect of mental illness and poorly developed community services. One needs to understand that the leading countries are not the only ones providing examples of best practice in integrating those with mental illness. Employment is the field of greatest concern for people with mental illness, but employment is also the area with the most inconsistent policies across Europe. A distinction can be made between countries whose policies are aspirational and those where implantation is support by substantial and most importantly sustained, resource investment. Europe as a whole is only in the early stages of the journey from institution- to community-based care. Lack of data makes greater understanding of this field difficult, and improvement can only be demonstrated by repeated surveys of this kind, based on more substantial, comprehensive and coherent information.

Usual caveats about the use of surveys. Missing data due to non-response and poverty of mental health inclusion data in many European countries.

The author reflects on the findings and considers areas for future action. The main implications are: better services result from substantial, but most importantly, sustained investment; and that employment is most important to people with mental health problems, but is one of the most inconsistent policy areas across Europe.

Supports the need for consistent investment in community mental health services and more consistent employment policies in Europe.

This survey is the first of its kind in Europe, and was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, and sponsored by Janssen.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the consequences of globalization, in particular the increasing disparity between the wealth of nations and individuals in society. It discusses mechanisms which lead to perpetuation and reinforcement of the situation in which, despite being characterized by inequalities and fragmentation, societies remain by and large cohesive and stable.

This article engages with the so‐called “Polanyi problem” and with Polanyi's and other authors’ responses to it. In the discussion, the analytical approach is adopted by reference to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in particular his concept of soma.

Using the metaphor of soma, developed into four interrelated dimensions, illustrations of social and organizational processes, which ensure sustainability of, and cohesion within, a society based on inequality and fragmentation, are indicated. It is argued that the existence of stratified societies, and inequalities of wealth within and between them, is accompanied by phenomena which support and sustain them.

Drawing upon literary fiction can offer valuable insights into issues pertinent to contemporary academic debate.

Engagement with Huxley's work provides an alternative way of contributing to the globalization debate and, in particular, to the literature addressing the so‐called “Polanyi problem”.

WHILE there is no doubt that the system of issuing books at “net” prices is of great benefit to booksellers, there is also no doubt that, unless care is taken, it is a serious drain upon a limited book‐purchasing income. A few years ago the position had become so serious that conferences were held with a view to securing the exemption of Public Libraries from the “net” price. The attempt, as was perhaps to be expected, failed. Since that time, the system has been growing until, at the present time, practically every non‐fictional book worth buying is issued at a “net price.”

THE fact that the forthcoming conference of the Library Association is to be held at Eastbourne this year should provide it with an additional official interest, as it is here that the Association Hon. Solicitor and Legal Adviser holds the important office of Town Clerk. Mr. Fovargue is the authority on Library Law in all its aspects, and is the author of several books on this important subject. We are particularly happy in being able to print an article from his pen in our special Conference number. The programme of the proceedings is by now, no doubt, in the hands of our readers, and will be found to be less crowded, but no less useful for that, than in previous years. Apart from the usual business programme, which should prove full of interest, the social side has been fully catered for and delightfully arranged. Several interesting motor trips are to take place, and delegates will be afforded an opportunity of enjoying the charms of the beautiful county of Sussex as well as those of one of our most favoured of seaside resorts.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

THE Wanstead Library is just round the corner from the shopping centre in the High Street where the old shop branch existed for many years. The new Library is a large, single‐storey structure with floor to ceiling windows facing Christchurch Green, a charming open space with well established trees. This spacious, attractive building is in complete contrast to the cramped accommodation previously occupied and local reaction has been emphatically favourable.

BY a happy consonance the Year Book of the Library Association for 1946 reached us as the Conference at Blackpool was beginning. It set a character to the Conference in that it contained a most admirably faithful portrait of the President. He was, without a shadow of doubt, the personality of the week. The flexible and earnest open features of the portrait are those of an unusual man, distinctive in thought, speech and act. This was reflected in an address which someone declared, with the warm acquiesence of his hearers, to be “a classic of librarianship.” Even if this prove to be an exaggeration, since prophecy is unwise and rarely fulfilled, that was the effect he produced, in words that began on a self‐excusing note and with a, to himself, unfair comparison of himself with his predecessors, became with increasing tempo a pæan of the joy so many of us share in librarianship, in spite of the sacrifices and slights that all librarians encounter, interwoven with the quoted or suggested results of a life‐time of reading.