Therapeutic art in psychiatric hospitals
The medical field, psychiatry studies and treats illness and mental health. The causes of disorders can be neurological, psychological, and often linked to social problems.
Medicine and art can be combined to improve the well-being of patients.
Art therapy in psychiatry is a tool that uses artistic practice in its therapeutic process as an aid to the diagnosis and treatment of mentally ill people.
Combining art and medicine in psychiatry has become common practice today.
Art therapy acts as a mediation between the creativity of patients and the therapeutic team.
Over the centuries, the arts have always rubbed shoulders with madness.
In ancient Greece, it was believed that the creative spark was generated by “the muses” who could at will give rise to or annihilate creative intuition.
The artist, because he was different from his peers, was as much feared as revered.
History of art in psychiatry
Civilizations, up to the present day, have dealt with madness in various ways.
In Antiquity, the madman was ostracized from society. He had different civil rights than his contemporaries.
In medieval times, the mentally ill had a special legal status and were never condemned, because they were recognized as irresponsible. Christianity has influenced people's view of mental illness. At this time, mercy and charity are advocated. The arts accompanied this vision, notably the works of » Jérôme Bosh. The most dangerous patients are locked up and the others mix with civil society. Psychiatry in the public space is negative. Mental illness is scary.
The etymology of the word psychiatry comes from the Greek psyche, meaning soul or spirit, and iatros, meaning doctor (literally “medicine of the soul”).
The term was popularized by Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813 in 1808). This German doctor close to Goethe defines the field of psychiatry, from diagnosis to treatment of mental disorders. It also includes various cognitive, behavioral and emotional disorders.
In the 19th century, the concept of madness changed completely. Psychiatry, a new discipline, incorporates mental illness into the medical field. It begins by identifying, by creating new semantics, psychological disorders and pathologies. Asylums are built which become places of curiosity for the population.
The insane are the objects of pseudoscientific experiments with questionable success. Among these practices, art associated with therapy becomes a subject of study. There is then little concern for the health of patients.
From the 1950s, art therapy appeared as a way to understand mental illnesses, to better treat them.
The visual arts, with painting, drawing and sculpture, are practiced within specific frameworks of care pathways. The creative work of the patients is analyzed. We decipher psychological disorders by interpreting what is produced.
Real works created by alienated artists are seeing the light of day. Furthermore, they are not recognized as an artistic expression, but as an apparent symptom.
A new vision of creation through mental illness
In the days of insane asylums, a drawing or painting was analyzed as the result of an aberration linked to madness. However, with the evolution of art, many perfectly balanced artists from this era at the beginning of the 20th century could have been considered deranged! It’s often the context that does the analysis!
It is the exhibitions of painters who stayed in the first psychiatric hospitals, including the Sainte-Anne hospital in the 14th arrondissement in Paris, which break with prejudices. Sainte-Anne began to become a recognized psychiatric hospital from 1867. Previously, it was a simple asylum. The first art therapy workshops in 1950 brought about a shift, with the consideration of creations as works of art in their own right.
The outlook of caregivers is changing. Therapeutic concerns are better identified. We are starting to form interdisciplinary therapeutic groups, which include psychotherapy processes. Psychologists work together with doctors. Each individual or group session is analyzed together.
Sick people are considered as people in their own right with artistic qualities that allow them to express discomfort. The training of art therapists always includes this vision.
Art as a diagnostic element
In scientific conceptions of mental illness, thoughts are repressed into the unconscious. They reappear in dreams and hallucinations in the form of images. Like the tip of an iceberg, the internal conflicts causing mental disorders are then released. This causes suffering which cannot be verbalized, but can materialize in graphic and aesthetic language.
Art becomes the only means of communication in such cases. For doctors, these graphic expressions become symbolic and potentially enable a diagnosis to be made.
As part of his workshop, the art therapist accompanies the patient's artistic efforts to help him escape from his usual environment. It becomes a conveyor of emotion with three positive effects:
- The expulsion of interior blockages which come from pathological disorders. The result is a reduction in tension and suffering.
- The materialization of symbols and significant images which offer the therapist material for analysis and diagnosis.
- For the patient, artistic work in the plastic arts becomes real. It establishes a better self-image and consequently produces hope. Like a mirror, the work produced allows the patient to confront himself.
In the medical profession, the view on the use of the arts as a therapeutic support process is evolving. The experience of creation modifies the relationship between patient and therapist. Art becomes an ally in the service of a team of professionals specialized in psychiatry. It opens a space for medical and artistic collaboration. The patient is seen as a person, who in certain situations becomes an artist.
Art therapy training is evolving. It is a medical training that takes into account new advances in the field of neuroscience, while leaving significant space for creativity for the patient's expression. The balance is delicate between the world of art and medical practice.
“Creativity and art therapy in psychiatry” — Pierre Moron, Jean-Luc Sudres, Guy Roux)
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