Magical Numbers. Thirty-three and a third.

There was a wonderful moment in  Out There when Stephen Fry accused one of the key proponents of ‘rebarbative therapy’ of being very ‘metrosexual’. But our metrosexual friend had the power of numbers as evidence that his theory worked. He explained that a third of his client base were homosexual –because of parenting issues, with Freudian overtones—and were too damaged to change their perspective. A third were treatable, by him or others like him, because they were somewhere on a spectrum between homosexuality and heterosexuality and the other third were pink elephants. I’d heard that argument before, not about pink elephants, but a psychiatric nurse in a locked ward telling me the same thing. A third of those with severe mental illness will remain depressed, schizophrenic…suicidal, a third will be helped by medication to lead an almost normal life and a third will have no lasting effect. Ditto an argument put forward by a lecture I attended a good few years ago by an addiction counsellor/worker. One third will remain addicts/alcoholics. One third are treatable and the other third will grow up, get married have kids—who then become alcoholics and addicts.    I’m slowly weaning myself off statistics.  

 

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'When shall we three meet again?' The Bard  of Avon. I remember being asked by a nurse on admission to the Royal Ed 25 years ago to subtract sevens from a hundred. Prime numbers have that certain... 'when you believe in things that you don't understand.' (Superstition -Stevie Wonder)     Elsie