Out of the Madhouse: from asylums to caring community, by Sandy Jeffs and Margaret Lettatt won the Oral History category of the Victorian Community History Awards in 2020.
Both authors will be guest speakers for YPRL as part of local history month on 26 October.
They have provided the following guest blog post.
Out of the Madhouse
Larundel Psychiatric Hospital was ‘the madhouse on the edge of town’ — until the 1990s, a Melbourne cultural icon shrouded in mystery in the outer suburb of Bundoora.
This story takes us into the heart of Larundel through the voices of former inmates and staff, exposing the best and worst aspects of the mental institutions of the times. It shows the shifts in psychiatric treatments, the social forces at play, and changes driving mental health policy. It explores what de-institutionalisation and ‘care in the community’ actually meant for those suffering mental illness, as well as for those treating, and caring for them.
What was it really like inside this madhouse?
Sandy was first admitted to Larundel in the 1970s with schizophrenia. For some forty years, Larundel housed hundreds of people suffering mental disorders — considered mad — a term Sandy reclaims. For some it gave asylum; for others, it was a hell-hole. During that time, Larundel became a crucible of experimentation in the medical and social therapeutic treatment of inmates — some methods ineffective or risky, some extraordinarily innovative and humane, heralding new directions in mental healing.
Sandy, while struggling to recover her own sanity in the wards and gardens of Larundel, saw ‘the best and the worst of humanity’ among the inmates and staff there. Years later, seeing the buildings deserted and crumbling, she was haunted by the understanding of how profoundly the institution had affected them all and was compelled to record their experience.
Sandy interviewed 70 people: inmates, nurses, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, chaplains and family carers; they told a rich story of an era of change within institutional walls.
At the end of the 1990s, it was decided to close the large mental institutions and entrust the inmates to a new model of ‘care in the community’, in the belief that by making mental illness more visible, the social stigma of madness would be reduced and people could live more ‘normal’ lives.
Sandy, now well-known as an advocate for the mentally ill as well as poet and author, collaborated with colleague and friend, Margaret Leggatt — academic, professional and also eminent advocate for families challenged by madness — to produce this book. The question they found themselves asking was:
What have we lost, and what have we gained, by the closure of the big mental hospitals? Have we learned anything worthwhile, or did we, when we closed down Larundel, consign everything about it to the forgetfulness of history? How much do we do better now than was tried in Larundel?
For all who are ‘consumers’ of mental health services, and for all those responsible for their care and recovery, these authentic voices, multi-faceted viewpoints and questioning analyses offer hopeful signs towards progress.
View photos of Larundel after it was abandoned.