Louisa Lawson House (LLH) was a mental health centre for women in

Leichhardt, New South Wales Leichhardt () is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district (CBD) and is the administrative centre for the local government ...

that operated from 1982 to 1994. Named after Australian feminist

Louisa Lawson Louisa Lawson (née Albury; 17February 184812August 1920) was an Australian poet, writer, publisher, Suffragette, suffragist, and feminist. She was the mother of the poet and author Henry Lawson. Early life Louisa Albury was born on 17 Februa ...

, it operated as an alternative to mainstream psychiatry, featuring

yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...

conflict resolution Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of Conflict (process), conflict and Revenge, retribution. Committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively co ...

training, and anxiety management training. In 1986, the centre opened a minor tranquiliser clinic to help women with

withdrawal symptoms Withdrawal means "an act of taking out" and may refer to: * Anchoresis (withdrawal from the world for religious or ethical reasons) * ''Coitus interruptus'' (the withdrawal method) * Drug withdrawal * Social withdrawal * Taking of money from a ban ...

from addictive tranquilisers which were in circulation at the time. One division called the "halfway house", launched in September 1985, was a program to provide housing to women with emotional problems, and it was launched with funding from the local department of youth and community services.

History

Louisa Lawson House was formed by members of the

women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resulted in g ...

(WLM), which began in Sydney in 1969. The Sydney branch of WLM prioritised

women's health Women's health is an example of population health, where health is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". Often treated ...

, childcare policy reform and

equal pay for equal work Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the fu ...

. LLH began initially as a branch of the Leichhardt Women's Community Health Centre (LWCHC) which was founded in 1974 to provide women's health services.In 1979, a group of women from LWCHC collaborated with a Sydney anti-psychiatry group ''Positive Alternatives to Psychiatry'' to form LLH. At the time, there was internal disagreement about whether to accept or apply for state funding among activists in Sydney women's refuge groups. In December 1981 the NSW Housing Commission granted LWCHC a building to use for what would be the Louisa Lawson House, although the organisation lacked resources and staff necessary to operate it until a large anonymous donation. Beginning in 1985, LLH gradually secured increasing state funds to facilitate operation such as for the "halfway house". In the process, the organisation became more bureaucratic and less politically engaged, stopping feminist activism which was not relevant to securing funding. LLH shifted from a feminist refuge to a women's counselling service, marked by a change in name to Louisa Lawson Centre with the name officially changed in 1989.

References

{{Reflist Mental health organisations in Australia Women's organisations based in Australia 1982 establishments in Australia