Psychiatry in Tasmania: from old cobwebs to new brooms

Objectives: To highlight some major historical trends in psychiatric practice in Tasmania from the inception of the asylum culture in the 1830s to the dynamic of deinstitutionalisation since the 1960s. Source material includes asylum registers and case notes from the early colonial period, annual reports of the Mental Health Services Commission and some oral history, particularly from the first author. The introduction of community, subspecialty, university and general hospital services is briefly chronicled and the role of a generation of psychiatrists in this process is acknowledged. Conclusions: The fixity of institutional culture for more than a century and its gradual attrition over the past forty years are well illustrated in Tasmania. New challenges are emerging as the identity of mental health is diluted in the broader health and administrative sectors.