Tag: mental illness
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Balancing empathy
Nora Salisbury Vancouver, BC, Canada Street art in Vancouver’s downtown eastside. Photo by Lee Gangbar. I almost fainted on my first clinical day in nursing school. I was invited to watch a catheter insertion. While my gut reaction was to completely avoid it, I knew that as a new student nurse I was supposed…
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To all the books that saved my life
Dannie Ong Melbourne, Australia Ellison H. I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. New York: Pyramid Publications; 1977. On the way to therapy, I am reading The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. I try not to think about the irony of it all – no job, no degree, not even a…
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Longitudinal lunacy: Science and madness in the eighteenth century
Richard de Grijs Sydney, Australia Daniel Vuillermin Beijing, China Interior of Bethlem Royal Hospital, from A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth. The poor soul in the background is trying to solve the longitude problem. “A couple of young Non conformist preachers from Worksop in the North of Derbyshire came thither to have my approbation…
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Madness and gender in Gregory Doran’s Hamlet
Sarah Bahr Indianapolis, Indiana, United States John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-52, Tate Britain, London. In director Gregory Doran’s 2009 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, David Tennant’s Hamlet becomes a bawdy lunatic who consciously or unconsciously uncouples himself from reality. The intentionality of Hamlet’s madness is more muddled than in Shakespeare’s text because of the…
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Art therapy: a historical perspective
Mirjana Stojkovic-IvkovicBelgrade, Serbia Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses the creation of art to help resolve psychopathological conflicts. It helps people to identify psychological weaknesses and see problems from a different perspective, enabling them to escape from repetitive self-destructive behavior. Art therapy improves personality, self-image, and self-acceptance, resulting in an improved quality…
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“Mental Cases” by Wilfred Owen: The suffering of soldiers in World War I
Alice MacNeill Oxford, United Kingdom Wilfred Owen plate from Poems (1920). Internet Archive via Wikimedia. Public domain. Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish, Baring teeth that leer like skulls’ tongues wicked? Stroke on stroke of pain, — but…
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The York Retreat
Beninio McDonough-Tranza London, United Kingdom Painting of the York Retreat by George Isaac Sidebottom, a patient at the retreat in the 1890s and early 1900s. Image from the retreat archives (RET/2/1/7/5), courtesy of the Welcome Collection. On 15 March 1790 Hannah Mills, a recently widowed young woman suffering from “melancholy,” was admitted to York…
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Letters from the asylum
Nicholas KangAuckland, New Zealand After cutting off his ear, Vincent van Gogh spent a year in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence confined to a mental asylum. Despite several major relapses during his stay, he continued to work prolifically, completing more than 140 paintings including masterpieces such as Starry Night, Irises, and Almond Blossom. Three months after leaving, he was…
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Treating thunderbirds
Ananya Mahapatra New Delhi, India Setting the mind free The cacophony of the psychiatric ward paused for a moment as a young woman was ushered in by two hospital attendants and her frail, frightened mother. She laughed garishly and cussed in rural vernacular with wild abandon. She spoke in loud unapologetic spurts, like pennies…