Back to the future: making a case for including the history of mental health nursing in nurse education programmes

Reflections on nursing history, the nature of its workforce and its evolution as a profession can be powerful tools in the development of professional identity. Historical accounts of mental health nurses' practice and how they are socially, politically and culturally positioned within a particular time frame serve to illustrate that as practitioners we are precariously placed within a certain point in history. This paper emphasises the importance of mental health nursing historical research within nurse education curricula as a means of situating current theories, practice and professional identity. It further proposes that as today's practice becomes tomorrow's history, mental health nursing will continue to respond in a dynamic way to the practices and policies of the day.