Manchester United is to open its doors on 1 August to mental
health
professionals so that men struggling with depression, poor
confidence and
low self-esteem and who are reluctant to use traditional
mental health
services, can attend therapy sessions Old Trafford rather than
a hospital
clinic.
It follows the example of Tottenham Hotspur, Motherwell,
Derwent Valley
Rovers – and Mansfield Town, where the project started.
Alan Pringle, a lecturer in mental health nursing at the
University of
Nottingham School of Nursing, told delegates that "It’s a
Goal" scheme (www.
itsagoal.org), managed by an experienced community psychiatric
nurse, has
run successfully at Mansfield Town for 18 months.
The men, referred by their GPs, local mental health team or
who came on
their own initiative, attended 11 hour-long sessions. The
success of the
project lies in changing both language and venue, so that the
men feeling
comfortable with both. The venue is the stadium and football
metaphors
replace the mental health jargon, said Mr Pringle.
For instance, the term "midfielder" was used to describe
hard,
uncompromising black-and-white personalities; "goalkeeper" was
shorthand for
unreliable people with flashes of brilliance, while "strikers"
were loners,
drifting in and out. "Avoidance" was translated into "bending
it like
Beckham"; "problem solving" became "how to get the ball past
the goal" and
"making connections", became "passing the ball". Video clips
of football
legends were used to make points and stimulate
discussion
Therapy sessions last a season and have been so successful
that the first
group still meets, without nurse. It was evaluated through an
interview and
questionnaire. One man said: "I’ve had bad experiences in
hospital; this
feels away from all that and is easy going and relaxed".
Another said he had
not been aware of depression that that the sessions had
"opened his eyes". A
third said he would not have gone to his doctor or a hospital.
"Setting it
in a football stadium made it attractive," he said.
A third of the original 12 men, most of whom were unemployed,
have returned
to work. One man said it was "therapy in disguise", a point Mr
Pringle
conceded:
"The big criticism of the scheme is that this is just a
gimmick – and that’s
absolutely true. It’s a way of saying if you don’t access
mental health care
services at all – or you access through a gimmick, I would
rather you access
through a gimmick. This will not make a huge impact on
mainstream mental
health care but reality is telling us that young men are still
four times
more likely to kill themselves, and so perhaps it’s worth
investing in
creative ideas like this.
"It’s not an alternative to mainstream mental health care
services, but
whether we like it or not we can make our services as
attractive as
possible. It’s about doing something slightly creative."
However, you don’t have to have mental health issues to
experience the
healing power of the football stadium. In another project, Mr
Pringle
recruited 29 Mansfield Town football fans to keep diaries
about their
activities before, during and after football matches over one
season. He
analysed the diaries and conducted in-depth interviews with
the fans when
the season had finished.
What he found was that regularly attending matches gave fans a
sense of
consistency, particularly in a town like Mansfield where
traditional
industries, such as mining and the textile industry, had been
swept away.
He said: "As life changes, the club is consistent. People were
saying, ‘I
used to work in the mine. Now that has gone and I stack
shelves in Asda, but
Mansfield town is still there. It was there when I got married
and when I
divorced and my life has changed dramatically. But I can still
go to the
same bit of the stand I used to stand in’."
Fans told Mr Pringle that it allowed them to spend quality
time with their
families – maybe the only thing that drew together the
generations. One fan
said:" It’s like three generations – me, my eldest brother,
his son and me
dad. My nephew’s seven, I’m 27 and my dad’s 72."
Then there was the release of pent-up tension and aggression.
All the stress
of the week could explode on a Saturday afternoon. The
carnival atmosphere
of a football match allowed fans to behave in ways – swearing,
shouting and
being abusing - that they would not dream of in their "normal"
lives.
One fan, a pharmacist, told Mr Pringle: "It isn’t really
socially
acceptable for pharmacists to taunt people or verbally abuse
them. Football
allows you to get rid of pent-up aggression from work which is
a very
stressful environment where you have to control your natural
emotions –
because there are times when you want to fly over the counter
at people."
For those with mental health problems, attending a football
match can be a
positive experience, said Mr Pringe. One fan, recovering from
a breakdown,
said that while he experienced a certain amount of stigma in
his daily life,
at a match he did not "need to explain". " Most of my football
friends
understand and it gives us something to look forward to and be
involved in."