Mental Health, Psychiatry and the Arts: a Teaching Handbook

170 Pages·2016·2.401 MB·English

by  Tischler, Victoria

Mental Health, Psychiatry and the Arts
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Mental Health, Psychiatry
and the Arts
A TEACHING HANDBOOK
Edited by
VICTORIA TISCHLER
CPsychol, BSW, MSocSc, PhD, PGCHE
University of Nottingham
Division of Psychiatry- Behavioural Sciences
Queen’s Medical Centre
Nottingham
Forewords by
DINESH BHUGRA
Professor of Mental Health & Cultural Diversity
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London
President, Royal College of Psychiatrists
and
ALLAN D PETERKIN
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine
University of Toronto
Radcliffe Publishing
Oxford (cid:129) New York
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2010 by Victoria Tischler
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
No claim to original U.S. Government works
Version Date: 20160525
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-138-03116-6 (eBook - PDF)
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Contents
Foreword by Dinesh Bhugra vii
Foreword by Allan D Peterkin viii
About the editor x
Contributors xi
1 Why use the arts to teach mental health and psychiatry? 1
Victoria Tischler
2 A brief history of psychiatry through the arts 11
Allan Beveridge
3 A day in the life of a cinemeducator 25
Matthew Alexander
4 The quest to understand the affl icted mind: Hans Prinzhorn and the
artistry of the mentally ill 33
Thomas Schramme
5 Poetry and clinical humanities 43
Femi Oyebode
6 When art and medicine collide: using literature to teach psychiatry 51
Arun Chopra
7 Creative writing as refl ective practice in health professions education 63
Emily Ferrara and David Hatem
8 An introduction to art psychotherapy 75
Mariangela Demenaga and Daphne Jackson
9 The aesthetics of mania: an introduction for health professionals 89
Rob van Beek
10 Learning about community arts 101
Theo Stickley and Kate Duncan
11 The use of drama and theatre arts in mental health education 111
Victoria Tischler
12 Music and psychiatry 121
Neil Nixon
13 What can we learn from blues music? 133
David Dodwell
Index 155
Foreword
Psychiatry as a discipline has a multi-f aceted approach to diagnosis and manage-
ment of mental health problems. Using biological, psychological and social models
for understanding human distress, psychiatrists can put together treatment packages
treating patients in a holistic manner. Medicine as a profession owes to its patients
and to society at large the best and most suitable treatments. The core function of
the profession is to heal and doctoring. Medicine and psychiatry, both based on sci-
ence, require the art of caring, using the principles of art in learning and teaching.
Psychiatry and its specialties can learn about mental illness and society’s response
to mental illness from textbooks, but equally importantly experience these emo-
tions from cinema, fairy tales, poetry, literature, drama, paintings and other media.
There have been studies looking at the creative nature associated with mental illness,
but more signifi cantly art itself holds a mirror up to society. Looking at the arts, the
progress or lack thereof, can be seen and experienced. Arts form a core of the human
‘being’ and ‘feeling’ and the way art refl ects society varies according to cultural differ-
ences and also in response to cultural differences in visual perception.
Using drama, poetry, music or therapies allows patients to express their feelings
in a non-t hreatening and sensitive manner. Both educators and students need to be
aware of the role the arts play in life and society. There is a danger that with increased
technical advances, doctors may turn into technicians. One way of avoiding this is
to instil in medical students and trainee doctors the notion that healing itself is an
art. Sitting with a patient, making sense of their distress, being empathetic in under-
standing both the symptoms and the person and alleviating suffering needs a human
touch. For that, doctors need the soul of an artist and must be aware of the value that
arts have for society and the individual. This book brings together enthusiasts who
have put together a much needed and welcome volume which hopefully will attract
the wide readership it richly deserves.
Dinesh Bhugra
Professor of Mental Health & Cultural Diversity
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London and
President, Royal College of Psychiatrists
June 2010
vii
Foreword
Scholars in the humanities believe that all knowledge is connected and that these
connections best help us understand what it means to be human. The arts in par-
ticular, by invoking all the senses, present vivid, unforgettable glimpses of reality.
They allow us to stretch our worldview to transcend time, the body, culture and
social status. Music, painting and literature portray themes all too familiar to the
psychiatrist (loss, love, confl ict, redemption) but seductively insist that we use
both hemispheres of our brains, the emotional and the analytic, to interpret them.
Reading a poem or following the lines of a drawing demands that we pay special
attention, that we embrace an aesthetic, unpragmatic sense of the world. If we then
discuss our reactions to a work with our colleagues or patients, we will be reminded
and then humbled that words and colours mean very different things to different
people. Ambiguity and the multiplicity of meaning are not only to be tolerated, but
celebrated when we contemplate art. These are indeed valuable lessons to profes-
sionals in mental health whose job it is to co-c onstruct meaningful, fully embodied
narratives with their patients. Our work as psychiatrists has become increasingly bio-
logical. Diagnosis (even on fi ve axes) can become an anti-n arrative, one dimensional
act. We may have improved the scientifi c credibility and reliability of our work, but
at times, run the risk of losing its soul.
The authors of this wonderful handbook provide a convincing argument that
the arts are good for what ails us. Just when we think we’ve heard (or seen) it all
before, a scene in a fi lm or play can surprise, even defamiliarise us from what we
think we know so far. We may experience joy, outrage, catharsis, but we are changed.
We are also reminded that the arts allow us (as busy, sometimes burdened clini-
cians) to climb back into the human race. We can be just as moved or surprised as
‘non- healers’, yet are in no way responsible for ‘fi xing’ what we’ve just witnessed.
Nonetheless, our moral imagination is engaged. We are reminded that nothing
human should be foreign to us in the work we do. We have just entered a world
which may provide a metaphor, image or point of entry down the line to help us
recharge our own creative imperative or sense of vocation.
This comprehensive work reminds us that for real learning to happen both
thought and emotion must be activated and subjective experience honoured along-
side intellectual rigour. The authors know of what they speak. They have each used
a preferred (dare I say beloved) artistic medium to deepen personal refl ection and
to enhance their own creativity as physicians, teachers and therapists. Their mod-
els are clear, their suggestions practical, but none of the approaches you’ll fi nd here
are reductive or simplistic. I encourage the reader to savour each chapter and then
viii
FOREWORD ix
to seek out the recommended texts, fi lms and images to deepen the experience. Try
some of the refl ective exercises and teaching strategies. You will be sure to rediscover
something you have always cherished about the art of healing.
Allan D Peterkin
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine
University of Toronto
Head, Program in Narrative and Healthcare Humanities
Mount Sinai Hospital
Founding editor
ARS MEDICA: A Journal of Medicine, The Arts and Humanities
www.ars- medica.ca
June 2010