A history of mental health nursing / Peter Nolan.

Originally published: London: Chapman & Hall, 1993.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Psychiatric nursing: origins and contemporary issues:- Introduction--From \'keeper\' to \' mental health nurse\'-- Institutional psychiatry--The credibility of psychiatry--Conflict in psychiatric nursing--Empowering mental health clients--Self-help and self-help groups--Nurses: role and attributes--Summary --References--2. In search of the roots of psychiatric nursing:- Introduction--Care of the mentally ill in the 17th and 19th centuries--Poverty, insanity and the workhouses--The great climacteric and the rising numbers of insane--The 1845 Lunacy Act and the advent of the asylum system--Referrences--3. Asylum care and culture:- Introduction--Definitions of insanity in the mid-19th century--Classification of mental disorders--Moral management--The asylum system, society and the medical profession--The attendants--Attendants in the medical literature--Interpretations of the work of the attendant--References--4. Training for the attendants:- Introduction--The work of the attendant--Early training of the attendants--The handbook for attendants on the Insane--Training after publication of the handbook--The antipathy of Mrs. Bedford-Fenwick--The failure of training--References--5. Mental nursing in the early 20th century:- Working conditions--The National Asylum Workers\' Union--Psychiatry in the 1920s--Confessions of an Asylum Doctor--Reflections of mental nurses who trained in the 1920s--Conclusion--References--6. Mental nursing during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s:- Introduction--The war years: overcrowding and community care--Nursing practice: traditiional and innovative--The Cassel Hospital--The Society of Mental Nurses--Training of mental nurses--Training of mental nurse tutors--Mental nursing during the 1940s as perceived by mental nurses--Mental nursing skills in the 1940s--The 1950s: mental hosopitals under attack--Institutional change and mental nursing skills--Therapeutic progress or pharmaceutical hype--Threatened erosion of nursing skills--Mental nursing: in decline?--The 1959 Mental Health Act--References--7. Mental nursing in the 1960s and 1970s:- Introduction--Government plans and nursing morale--Defining mental nursing--Mental nurse training in the 1960s--The experience of nurses during the 1960s--The Salmon Report--The era of public enquiries--Mental nursing in the 1970s--References--8. Mental nursing in the 1980s:- The NHS in the 1980s: economics and management--Training in the 1980s--Project 2000--The sample--Reasons for entering psychiatric nursing--Nurses\' reaction at the end of training--Conclusions--References--9. Past, present and future:- Introduction--The impact of mental nurse training--From the institution to the community--Twentieth century theory and practice in psychiatry--Twentieth century theory and practice in psychiatric nursing--Care in the communmity: pitfalls and shortfalls--The future for mental health nursing and nurses--Nursing and research--Conclusion--References.

Peter Nolan presents a history of psychiatric nursing which contrasts the distress of those who have experienced mental illness with the pioneering efforts of psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses.