THAT'S MEN:As humans, it is in our identity as social beings and as members of groups that we really flourish
IN TIMES of stress, sickness and unemployment you might need a football team more than you need a counsellor.
Striking evidence of the value of social involvement continues to grow, and I was delighted to see that
friendship and community is the theme of Clare Mental Health Week which starts on October 5th.
During the week, forums will be held throughout Co Clare to encourage communities
and groups to come together to show solidarity and support to each other in times of unemployment and recession.
I hope other parts of the country will be encouraged to follow suit.
I have written previously about how people with a good social involvement are less prone to dementia, a finding which has been backed up by many studies in many countries.
One study found that the life satisfaction of people who have strokes is greater if they can maintain membership of social groups than if they cannot.
Obvious? Perhaps, but easy to forget when your life suddenly changes.
Life can change suddenly in other ways too, for instance through unemployment. Therefore the question of isolation is extremely important for men at a time of rising unemployment.
According to the organisers of Clare Mental Health Week, approximately two-thirds of the long-term unemployed in Ireland are men.
The resulting loss of purposeful activity and social support can be bad for their mental health. Those who are unemployed for more than one year are six times more likely to die by suicide than those recently unemployed – a shocking figure.
For men outside the towns and cities, the situation is worse. The disintegration of rural communities brings isolation – no neighbours to talk to, no way to get into the town or back from it – with all its dire consequences.
We can all maintain an identity in isolation, but it is in our identity as social beings and as members of groups that we really flourish.
This is why being ostracised from a group can be so devastating. Huge parts of our identity are social, not individual. A person’s
identity may be tied up with work, football, the family, a church, a political party and so on.
When we are deprived of our social identity we partially die. Indeed, a sense of social isolation, whether justified or not, is often present when people are suicidal.
So social groups are extraordinarily important and we need to pay attention, as individuals and at policy level, to cultivating opportunities for social contact.
Which brings me back to the importance of the community and friends theme of Clare Mental Health Week.
Unemployment, by removing people from the workplace, also removes them from a group which is vital to most of us: fellow workers.
If the unemployed person, through a sense of stigma or because of shortage of money, drops other social activities, isolation can grow with the consequences seen among some long-term unemployed men.
Behind that elevated suicide rate is a great deal of depression, loneliness and despair.
That is why I said at the start that if you are feeling depressed you might need a football team more than you need a counsellor. Actually, it doesn’t matter very much what the group is.
A book club, a political party, a residents’ association, a walking club, all fulfil the powerful function of strengthening and affirming the social identify of members. Membership of any group is a powerful tonic.
For all the above reasons, I hope the threatened cutbacks to the Rural Transport Scheme never materialise. There are many beautiful parts of the country in which, however, a CIÉ bus is never seen.
Behind the beauty is isolation if you don’t drive a car. Behind isolation, all too often, is depression and even suicide.
As human beings we live for involvement. Without it, as is clear from any amount of research, we begin to die a little. In recent times, I think, we fell out of connection with each other. We were just too busy and perhaps communities didn’t seem as important any more.
But they never lost that importance and now, I hope, we are returning to an awareness of the need to rebuild them.
pomorain@ireland.com
Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book, That's Men, The Best of the That's Men Column from The Irish Times, is published by Veritas