Menders of the Mind

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists was founded in 1946, and this history commemorates its fiftieth anniversary.


Psychiatry is often seen as a controversial branch of medicine. Menders of the Mind presents a general history of the discipline’s professional body in Australia and New  Zealand, and its role in the medical profession and wider society over the last fifty years. 


The book traces the College’s development and evolution, and examines the role of key leaders in the College’s history. It also contains chapters that examine specific aspects of the College’s history in more detail, including its specialist training and examination program, and the role of the College in the Chelmsford ‘Deep Sleep’ and Townsville ‘Ward 10B’ affairs, which received national media coverage.


In a format that is easy to follow, the book is divided into three parts, each spanning the entire history of the College. The first part of the book provides a synoptic history of the College, which shows how a small, collegial, voluntary association evolved to become a large medical specialist society. Part 2 contains detail on the evolution and nature of the internal structures and functions of the College. And Part 3 examines the external workings of the College and its relationship with the wider world.


Based on archival and oral sources, this is a judicious, balanced, and lucid history, and a fitting tribute to the College.


W.D. Rubinstein is Professor of History at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. He was formerly Professor of Social and Economic History at Deakin University, Geelong. He is an elected fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, and the Royal Historical Society in the United Kingdom.


Hilary L. Rubinstein has written works on seventeenth-century British history and on Australian Jewish history. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the United Kingdom.