Open Day Sunday 10 am – 4 pm

Don’t forget the Open Day this Sunday at Willow Court, there are still places available on the Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning and afternoon performances from the Derwent Valley Players. For $25 you get to see two historic short plays and enjoy a high tea with the cast.

Two tour guides will walk around the buildings for a historic tour on Sunday which is free.

Information sessions for the Archaeology dig that is currently underway will also be held. Come see what finds they have and hear the stories from behind the scenes. Free.

It’s a great day to be in the Valley! 

Willow Court event February 2017

The Derwent Valley Council have stipulated that appropriate foot wear be worn while on the site.

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Christmas in Purgatory

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Burton Blatt

CHRISTMAS IN PURGATORY A Photographic Essay on Mental Retardation

This rare publication is available free for download on the internet through a U.S. Government website. This is now considered a rare (first edition August, 1966) publication and gives a photographic insight into the lives of people in three institutions in the United States around Christmas 1965. Burton Blatt from Syracuse University and Fred Kaplan entered the institutions with a spy camera attached to a belt and covered by their coat, they proceeded to photograph the back Wards and the people who were warehoused there. The first 1000 copies of the book were sent to Legislators and Administrators. No-one would publish the photos at first and Doctor Blatt self published this now, well know book.

“The purpose of this book is to present our findings in the hope that they will inspire constructive action among those in responsible positions. For those not in positions to legislate or reform, we hope to strike a chord of awareness, to shatter the shell of complacency born of ignorance that surrounds the problem. From this element of society, we hope for support. The first section of this essay represents conditions existing in too many institutions for the retarded. The second section of the book is devoted to the heartening conditions we found at The Seaside. Our optimism for the betterment of state institutions is based on the evidence of the forward strides that have been made there. To us, The Seaside represents what can be done with funds, intelligent administration and an adequate, sensitive and well-trained staff.”

This publication turned the course of Human Warehousing in America and ultimately started the de-institutionalisation process. It is still used today in the academic education system to understand the history of disability.

Images may be considered graphic and disturbing to some people.

Click here or the image above to load the book.

 

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Trespassers Welcome

The Derwent Valley Players will be performing two plays written and performed by Sharon Hutchison (the Matron) based on stories from Willow Court’s history. The plays will be either side of a wonderful High Tea served in The Barracks, the Avenue, New Norfolk.

“Meet the Matron”
&

High Tea

&
“Tea & Charity”

All tickets $25.00 cash only at the door. Saturday and Sunday, 11th and 12th. February, 11.30 am and 2 pm. Bookings advised 0411 744 248.

Tickets for the 11.30 am show on Saturday have nearly sold out! 

There is still space left in the Saturday afternoon show 2 pm and both Sunday’s shows 11.30 & 2 pm have spaces spare.

Three events for this cost is great value and a wonderful way to see and hear the site’s history!

Presented as part of Willow Court’s Unearthed Weekend. 

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Acknowledging and learning from past mental health practices

Quietly in 2016 The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) release a Position Statement which for most people went unnoticed, yet it was created to open a public dialogue on the history of treatment within the institutional settings in Australia and New Zealand.

The position statement can’t be underestimated. It is a clear statement that;

 acknowledges that psychiatrists have a critical role to play in acknowledging historical harmful practices”  and

” people have been affected by harmful practices in the past”…

“Practices now known to be harmful had a range of causes. They included both systemic approaches to care and individual practices. Some historical treatments may have been well-intentioned but were without an evidence base, ineffective, and distressing to experience.

Treatments also may have been used inappropriately (for example, past administration of electroconvulsive therapy without anaesthetic, or even as a punishment rather than a therapy). 

An entire model of care – the asylum system, which dominated mental health care for the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century – often disregarded the dignity of those it was intended to care for and protect. Until the development of antipsychotic medications in the mid-twentieth century, there was certainly an argument for such facilities which could provide genuine care and a place of ‘asylum’ for the residents. At the same time, they institutionalised inhumane practices which would have been 
unacceptable beyond their walls.

In time they became feared by the public, with reputations for overcrowding, brutality, separation of children from parents, and permanent exclusion from society (Miller, 2012). A whole series of Royal Commissions in Australia and New Zealand confirmed that, for some, these fears were well-founded.

An entire model of care – the asylum system, which dominated mental health care for the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century – often disregarded the dignity of those it was intended to care for and protect”

As a result of past practices the Position Statement goes on to link past practices to the current stigma around mental health and the service provision.

“Public attitudes are significantly influenced by entertainment and news media which can give a sensationalised, highly misleading impression of psychiatry and mental health services”

Willow Court staff and Tasmania’s leading Mental Health Administrators have been prominent leaders in The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists starting with; 

Charles Brothers

President 1949 

Dr Charles Brothers was a foundation member of the Australasian Association of Psychiatrists (AAP) and was elected President in 1949, a fitting tribute for the doctor and Director of Mental Hygiene who had made an exceptional contribution to Australian psychiatry at the time.

In 1927, Dr Brothers took up his residency in at the Royal Melbourne Hospital where he remained until 1936. He then crossed back to his much-loved state of Tasmania taking up the position of Medical Superintendent to Lachlan Park Mental Hospital. Dr Brothers became the Director of Mental Hygiene in Tasmania in 1946 and was also Honorary Psychiatrist to the Royal Hobart and Launceston General Hospitals. During this time he studied and became an expert on Huntington’s Chorea, particularly in the state of Tasmania.

Followed by:

Eric Cunningham Dax AO

President 1964 

Dr Eric Cunningham Dax graduated from London University in 1932 with honours in Medicine. He studied psychiatry at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, and gained clinical and research experience in a number of private and public psychiatric clinics and hospitals in Britain.

Dr Eric Cunningham Dax came to Tasmania and prepared a report for the Tasmanian Government to regionalise Mental Health Services. Report HERE. He stayed in Tasmanian in a leading roll and saw the regionalise process through the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

In 1985 Dr Eric Dax was awarded an AO for services to psychiatry and was appointed a Senior Associate in Medical History at the University of Melbourne, as well as being admitted to the degree of Doctor of Medicine honoris causa.

Initially a clinical tool, his collection of artwork done by patients became a means to teach people about the experience of mental illness. The collection also performs an historical function, reflecting the changes in mental health policies and treatment since 1946. The Cunningham Dax Collection holds 15,000 works and is one of the largest of its type in the world. Open to visitors it is now located within the Melbourne Brain Centre, located on the University of Melbourne Parkville campus.

Dr Cunningham Dax AO was followed by the Dr Isobel Williams who, according to Lawrence Edward Cullen in his book, Royal Derwent Hospital: past to present, 1936 – 1978, Dr Isobel Williams was the first Doctor to administer electric convulsive therapy (ECT) in B Ward (Bronte) in the late 1930’s.

Isobel Williams

President 1967

Dr Constance Isabel Arundel (CIA) Williams graduated from Medicine at the University of Melbourne in 1932 and subsequently joined the staff of the Launceston Public Hospital in Tasmania. In 1938 she was appointed to Lachlan Park Hospital (later Royal Derwent Hospital) in New Norfolk where she worked under the supervision of Dr Charles Brothers (an early President of Australasian Association of Psychiatrists (AAP)) and qualified to join the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1944.

By 1952 Dr Williams had moved from Lachlan Park to Millbrook Rise Psychopathic Hospital as Deputy Superintendent. Millbrook Rise was originally built using Tasmania’s share of the surplus Red Cross funds raised during the First World War, and was intended for the treatment of ‘shell-shocked’ veterans.  As this demand declined it specialised in the voluntary treatment of neurosis and depression both in a residential hospital and outpatient setting. In 1968 Dr Williams retired from the position of Head of Millbrook Rise to go into private practice.

Dr Isobel Williams (as she was known) was an inaugural member of the Australasian Association of Psychiatrists (AAP) in 1946 where she was one of three women out of 67 members, and presented at the 1949 Congress in Hobart. She was also a Foundation Fellow of the College in 1963 and the inaugural President of the Tasmanian Branch of the College in 1958. For many years Dr Williams was the only woman to reach a position of authority in either AAP or the College.

The full “Position Statement” can be found HERE

 

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Millbrook Rise

Today we have released for public viewing a new website tab dedicated to the history of Millbrook Rise Psychopathic Hospital.

The site is a current mental health provider and is off limits to site visitors. I also acknowledge that the images and historical recording may disturb some people who have had history at this site.

We will continue to add information and stories to this tab as we discover them.

If you have any stories please contact me at mark@willowcourttasmania.org to discuss options and methods of recording and possible usage. 

Millbrook Rise was a Ward of the Royal Derwent Hospital from 1968 but existed under it’s own Act. of Parliament from 1933 til 1968 but shared Administration Management with the Mental Diseases and Lachlan Park Hospital. 

Click the image below to see a collection of images and information from Derwent House.

(c) Copyright 2017. All images and writing remains the copyright property of “Willow Court Tasmania History Group”.

My thanks for access to the site can not be acknowledged publicly, however I remain grateful to have seen the buildings and hear about the history.

I also acknowledge our own Historian Consultant, Tony Nicholson for his input and review of the information presented. 

Mark Krause

 

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