Prospects of a progressive mental health system in South Africa before apartheid: Tara Hospital and psychobiology, c.1939-1948 -- The "disordered" state: government policies and institutions for the administration of the mad during apartheid, 1948-1973 -- Patient accounts: life in state institutions and challenging exile, 1939-1961 -- Heinous crimes: community and cross-cultural psychiatry, and state mental health services for non-whites, 1948-1990 -- Controlling and challenging sexuality: psychiatric struggles over homosexuality in the 1960s-1980s -- "Monopoly on madness?": private long-term mental institutions in South Africa, 1963-1989 -- Critics of the system?: the Church of Scientology and the international vilification of psychiatry in South Africa -- Conclusion.