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University Daily Kansan
Friday, Dec. 13, 1963
Utopia or Disaster to Result From Shorter Work Week
WASHINGTON — (UFI) — The average working man today enjoys 22 years more leisure than his grandfather did. He has a longer life span, a shorter work week and more vacation time.
Automation offers him even more leisure because the shortening of the work week has been relentless and inevitable. In 1800 the work week was 84 hours, in 1909 it was 52 hours and today it is slightly under 40 hours. Labor unions are pressing now for a 35-hour week. Joseph Prendergast of the National Recreation Association has predicted that within a century the work week will consist of seven hours.
"THIS civilization is not going to depend on what we do while we work but on what we do in our time off." Herbert Hoover said many years ago. Subsequent events give him top grade for prophecy.
On the surface it would appear we are on the march toward an industrial Utopia. But many psychiatrists are coming around to the opinion we are headed for disaster unless Americans can be shaken out of their mental and emotional patterns.
The fact seems to be that millions of Americans don't want more leisure time and are bored when it is forced upon them. The files of psychiatrists are crammed with thousands of cases of executives compelled to retire at 63. In about six months it dawns on these men that fishing and golf are not so attractive as they looked from the office window. The results are mental disturbances and deterioration in health sometimes to the point of death.
A more dramatic example is available on the streets of all large cities. In the age group between 14 and 24 there is a hard core of youths who are unemployed with no hope of finding a job.
The National Urban League says 10 per cent of the white boys and $17 \frac{1}{2}$ per cent of Negro boys seeking work are in that category. Here you have enforced leisure 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year. You also have an available pool of manpower from which juvenile delinquent gangs can recruit members. In fact, many government economists view this as the most serious aspects of automation—the boys who drop out of school. They are unemployable because they lack educational skills, they have nothing to do but roam the streets and too many of them become adept in the manipulation of switch-blade knives.
BUT deterioration because of too much leisure spreads through all age groups. Dr. Alexander Reid Martin writes in "Education for Life Off the Job":
"Sleeplessness, the inability to relax and the fear of leisure are among the earliest and most common symptoms of so-called psychiatric illness. These symptoms are, of course, unrelated to pain and any demonstrable physical disease.
"When these patients are confronted with leisure, they are restless, dissatisfied, irritable and they show great intolerance of inactivity and waiting. They have great feelings of guilt if they read a book, go to the movies, watch TV or do anything for sheer pleasure. They are especially intolerant of children.
They can overcome this feeling of guilt somewhat if they place all these activities under the heading of necessity—TV and theater are 'musts' for education and vacations are 'musts' for health.
BEFORE leaving the impression that mental hospitals are crammed with persons who cannot endure leisure, let's hurry to say that millions of Americans are idle and contented. Travel inside the United States has boomed in recent years, and here the defenders of automation are able to score a telling point: Sure, there are more retired workers riding the highways and the result has been a mushroom growth of motels. In other words, when more people are not working, the economy automatically adjusts itself by creating new businesses and industries.
How do Americans kill time when not working? In the inactive field (reading, listening or watching somebody else do something) the rating is in this order: watching television, listening to radio, reading newspapers, reading magazines, watching motion pictures.
In the field of hobbies: collecting things (stamps, coins, books etc.), traveling, card playing, gardening, fishing, bowling, sewing, hunting, swimming, photography, boating, handicrafts, outdoor cooking, golf, tennis and painting.
But the prospects for self education are dim in this country. A recent poll showed that only 17 per cent of Americans were currently reading a book. For Great Britain the figure was 55 per cent.
Movie Shows Progress Of Mentally Ill Woman
By Charles Corcoran
Painfully slow and unemotional, she was reluctant to sit. She paced the floor in the psychiatrist's office, never uttering a sound, never responding to the doctor's offers to help her.
This was the scene after three weeks of intensive, mental therapy. When she first entered the hospital, in the therapist's office she had refused to move. She had stood, staring into space without any expression.
THE PSYCHIATRIST'S first step was to try to make contact with his patient, "Doris L." At first she met all his suggestions and offers as if she did not hear him.
The film was seen last night by about 150 members and non-members of the psychology club in the Jayhawk Room of the Kansas Union.
She was a mental patient in "Out of Darkness," a movie showing actual therapy "treatments" of a schizophrenic.
The doctor asked if perhaps Doris might like to use his comb. Regardless of her response, he placed the comb on the table next to him.
"I try to offer my help," he said. "I put it on the table, so to speak, like the comb." Doris glanced at the table, but looked away.
"You must decide if you want that help," the doctor said slowly and almost inaudibly. Still expressionless, Doris cautiously approached the table and delicately picked up the comb. The first step was taken; she had accepted the idea of his help, if only figuratively, after 4 weeks of treatment.
AS DORIS' treatment progressed,
she became more alert to her surroundings. The doctor declared that after the 10th week "Non-verbal contact is firmly established." According to him, this is the time to try to get the patient to speak, although it may cause new anxiety.
He questioned Doris about the circumstances leading to her coming to the hospital. She remained silent, but visibly shaken by his attempt to get her to talk. He explained that he could not help her without knowing her feelings. There was a long pause as the camera picked up the rapidly changing expressions on Doris' troubled face.
"Would it help if you whispered in my ear?" the doctor asked. There was no response. Both sat silently, motionless.
AGAIN, with great caution, Doris acted to affect her own cure. She reached out and removed the doctor's cuff link.
"What a big pearl. Is it real," she asked haltingly.
After 13 weeks of treatment, the doctor declared that the first major stage of her treatment was over, "You're ready for a change," he told her. "You're finished with your 'rest' and are ready to talk to people."
Doris' treatment was not over yet, since she had to go back to society and this might mean a relapse. But, the movie ended shortly after she uttered her first words, having shown the excruciating first steps on her road to recovery.
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