Rod Morris, a dedicated mental health professional, has marked an impressive milestone with a 60-year career in the mental health field. At 75, his lifetime has been full of extraordinary progress in how we approach and address mental health. These changes have especially affected child- and adolescent-age youth. He began that journey in the early 1960s. In those days, mental health patients lived under heavily controlled regimes.
Morris started his career treating adults, before making the jump to treating children a decade into his career. His early career in mental health was spent partly at St Luke’s Hospital in Middlesbrough. That hospital eventually evolved into what we would today call Roseberry Park Hospital. Soon, he began to realize the unique needs of younger people who were struggling with mental health issues.
For most of these kids, their interactions with authority had been traumatic, Morris explained. “I had to build a rapport with them and get them to trust me, see past the veneer to the person and what was actually driving their behaviour.”
In her more than 50-year career, Morris was able to treat thousands of young patients. He even collaborated with girls at the controversial ProTyce School in Newcastle. His compassionate approach and belief in activity as a means to improve mental health fueled his commitment to this vulnerable population.
“I still believe activity can relate to mental health improvement,” he stated. This viewpoint led him to develop a new course. The course assists parents in understanding the physical, psychological, and environmental factors that could contribute to their child’s self-harm.
The change in society’s views on mental health has been remarkable since Morris first stepped into the industry. He remembers an era when hundreds of patients had been given a home in institutions for social rather than medical purposes. “They were there for society’s reasons, not because they needed to be,” he noted, underscoring the need for a more compassionate approach to treatment.
Particularly traumatic was the near-death experience of Morris himself in May 2020, when an abscess on his prostate caused him to go into sepsis. He was actually in the hospital for six months recuperating after this episode. In that time, he did a lot of soul-searching on his career work and the effect it had on his family. With seven children and now ten grandchildren, he realized it was time to step down and focus more on his own family.
“Mental health challenges in children will never go away, but our responses change,” he remarked, reflecting on his extensive experience. He is especially concerned about social media’s effect on children’s mental health. He explains that it tends to increase whatever issues they’re already struggling with.
As Morris looks back on his career, he often comes across former patients. As a result, many of these operators are now in their 50s and 60s. Years later, these interactions still serve as a reminder of the constant positive influence he has had on their lives. “I have exorcised from my life anyone or anything that is negative,” he stated, emphasizing his commitment to positivity.
Morris agrees that even though awareness and understanding of mental health are getting better, there is still much to learn. “The knowledge we have has been improving massively, but there is always more to learn,” he said.
His approach to mental health care combines professionalism and humanity. He wants everyone to understand that working with adults is usually a lot easier than working with youth. “With the adults, what you see is what you get, but with the young people, you had to do a lot more work to break through and see what was actually going on,” he explained.
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