When Decades Can Feel Like Months

By James Houghton

In his story, James Houghton discusses his career spanning over four decades which began with a childhood passion for horses redirected towards nursing. Despite detours into telecommunications and the travel industry, Jame's desire to help people led him back to nursing, where he found his niche in mental health care. His story demonstrates the importance of embracing opportunities and staying true to one's passions throughout life's journey.

As I look back over coming close to 43 years as a nurse, I’m struck by how difficult it is to know what to include and, more importantly, what to leave out. I guess logistically it would make sense to start with why I became a nurse in the first place, which is not your typical story of “I wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember” or “I never wanted to do anything else!”

Since being a toddler, I had had a passion for horses, and I wanted to be a horse-riding instructor. But my dad insisted that, since there was no money in this unless you owned the land and the business, there was no way he was going to let me be a riding instructor (or as he put it, ‘someone else’s lackey”!) So, I left school (which I hated) with no direction and meandered my way into several different jobs – Customs Officer, NZ Dairy Board freight clerk, and ended up working for NZ Telecom as a switchboard operator (because I wanted to work shift work). At that time, I was married, and my wife was a General & Obstetric nursing student. After having some careers advice, the counsellor suggested, since I liked animals and people, either veterinarian (not so good because I had failed Chemistry and Physics and barely scraped a pass in Biology O levels) or nursing/counselling. My wife was horrified – “that’s not happening, we’ll never talk about anything but hospitals!” But I felt there was something in the advice – I mean, the fantastic thing about nursing is that we could go overseas and travel – nursing can take you anywhere in the world, right?

Back then there were three kinds of nursing training, all of which were hospital-based, which meant they were more like a trade apprenticeship. Hard to imagine but we actually got paid (a pittance) to learn how to be a nurse! In NZ back in the early 80’s the three options were General and Obstetric, Psychiatric or Psychopaedic (known more widely as Mental Retardation Nursing). Being mindful of my wife’s aversion to me becoming a General nurse I chose Psychiatric nursing and rang the Psychiatric Nursing School. This was September and I was told that their next, annual intake was the following February. This was hard to hear as I was desperate to get out of NZ Telecom. So, I rang the Psychopaedic Hospital who told me the same story – next intake not until February – BUT I could start almost immediately as a hospital aid, that way I could see if I even liked the work. And so it began, the start of a career in which decades feel more like months. 

Long story short, I completed my 3-year Psychopaedic nursing and my year as a newly Registered Psychopaedic Nurse. After a year I was a bit bored with nursing and was attracted by the glamour (and perks) of the travel industry, so I gave that a go. But those perks paled quickly, and it was all about math's, dollars and profit. Not being good with the first two meant that I struggled to nail the third – my tours lost money usually over some silly mistake I’d made in the quote.

Whilst in the travel industry, I discovered that I really liked helping people and had become a volunteer counsellor with Lifeline. And the more I learned about counselling and experienced both face-to-face counselling and group training, the more interested and eager I became to learn more.

Then one day there was an advert in the local paper for the next Psychiatric Nursing Intake for the Auckland Hospital Board. I applied and with my previous registration was accepted for a two-year bridging course as a Psychiatric Nurse. Once again, the two years shot by and before I knew it, I was a double registered nurse – Psychopaedic and Psychiatric. Then came a magic moment! 

Along the journey I’d become a dad and my then 5–6-year-old daughter saw an advert for an equestrian therapeutic riding centre, Ambury Park Centre. She looked at me all innocent and said “Daddy, you should get a job here and then I could ride a pony!” There’s a saying “from the mouths of babes…” and this couldn’t have been more true. Within a couple of days I had phoned and spoke to the Director and the Director of Special Needs Learning and convinced them that they needed me on staff for my mental health qualifications and nursing experience, coupled with my absolute passion for horses (I had my own horse by this stage).

Then followed 10 amazing years where I had the best job imaginable – combining my love of helping young people with mental health challenges with my love of horses. I was incredibly happy and felt like I had found my niche.

Then, due to the Centre becoming a gazetted school and I wasn’t a qualified teacher, I had to choose between two positions in the organization of which neither quite fitted what I wanted to do. At the same time, I learned that nursing had now become a university degree and I had had a hankering for higher education for some time. So off I trotted (pun intended) to get my Bachelor of Health Science (Nursing) and I found myself receiving the grand title of Registered Comprehensive Nurse (meaning that I was qualified to work in all fields of nursing). Having really enjoyed all aspects of higher learning, it was no huge decision to go on and study for a Post Graduate Diploma in Child & Family Health with a mental health specialty.


Since then, it has been mental health nursing all the way. For a while I trained and worked as a family therapist in a South Auckland Child & Adolescent Mental Health Centre (CAMHS), working with the likes of Dr Michael Rimm and Dr Charles Fishman, both of whom were trained at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic working with Salvador Minuchin (a guru of 90’s family therapists). Then, after moving to Melbourne in 2005, having previously been a member of the Australian and New Zealand College of Mental Health Nurses, I reconnected with the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses (ACMHN) initially as the Professional Development Coordinator and then (and currently) as the Victorian Branch Chair.

It would be true to say that, among many profound decisions I have made along my nursing journey, choosing to be an active member of ‘the College’ (ACMHN) has been a ‘biggie’. Attending the International Conferences as often as I can, applying for and maintaining my Credentialing, becoming a Fellow of the College and engaging with the fantastic people in our National Office (both current and historical) are all facets of the many benefits that College membership has brought me. Choosing to engage with the College has really enabled me to make both professional and personal connections with some amazing people, (mostly nurses), who’ve all had a very positive impact on my ability to stay in nursing for four decades. Many of these connections have turned into deeply rewarding friendships and others are more like family. 

And it feels like only months since my first meeting…

James Houghton
RN, BHSc, PGDip, CMHN, FACMHN

James Houghton is the Chair of our Victorian Branch and is currently at The Royal Melbourne in the Mental Health Training & Development Unit.

TAGS   Australian College of Mental Health Nurses membership, mental health career change, mental health nursing career, mental health policy Australia