Parting at the Crossroads: The Emergence of Education for Psychiatric Nursing in Three Canadian Provinces, 1909–1955

Abstract

Early in the 20th century, nursing emerged as an essential part of psychiatry's attempt to provide scientific care for insanity. Throughout Canada psychiatric nursing is a specialty of general or registered nursing. In Western Canada, however, it is also a separate and distinct profession known as registered psychiatric nursing (RPN). To further the study of nursing history, this paper examines the emergence and early development of mental hospital nursing in Canada, tracing the changing patterns of nurse training from 1909, when Ontario's asylum training school movement was established, to 1955, when education for psychiatric nursing split along the Manitoba-Ontario border into two models. Through case studies in three provinces (Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan), this study examines the question of how Canadian psychiatric nursing developed into two entirely different models. During the 20th century, and interplay of social, political and economic factors emerged which shaped the development of psychiatric nursing and influenced the evolution of the two models. In addition, there were forces within nursing itself, including the effects of specific strategic decisions taken by nursing's leaders and the continuing role of nurses' resistance to the authority expressed by those within the medical profession. The development of psychiatric nursing is best understood by focusing on the point where psychiatry's authority intersected with the gendered limitations of nursing's leaders. This struggle represented a contest for control over education for mental hospital nursing. This paper argues that the turning point in the battle for control of Canadian education for psychiatric nursing occurred when nurse leaders refused to allow the specialty of psychiatric nursing to be taken over by an expanding psychiatric monopoly. The distinct psychiatric-controlled Western Canadian-style apprenticeship training was halted at the Manitoba-Ontario border. That nursing leaders persevered in the struggle to gain authority for psychiatric nursing education was a significant contribution to the development of Canadian nursing education and the psychiatric nursing specialty. Remnants of the themes found in the study endure to the present as organized nursing continues to struggle with issues around autonomy and authority over education and practice.