The art of medicine is often discussed as the skills beyond our factual knowledge that aid our interactions with patients. The way we connect with people, empathise and communicate. At WiseGP we discuss the creative art within and beyond our consultations as an aspect of knowledge work. After exploring a patient’s illness experience, we creatively work with them to co-develop an explanation for their symptoms, which informs our management. We then evaluate their response, so we can creatively adapt our explanations and plans if needed.
Many doctors have a creative aspect to their personality. If you are musical, artistic, enjoy films or poetry, you may miss these creative outlets in your work, but do they need to be absent?
Art can be a fantastic learning tool in medicine, to help explore our unconscious biases, broaden our perspectives and help us to understand different cultures. More-so, it can offer us insights into people’s illness experiences, encourage compassion in our work and help us think differently about how we apply our knowledge.
On my recent travels I’ve enjoyed exploring art and medical history. Here are some well-known examples that might inspire you to explore the links between art and medicine further, in tutorials, everyday practice, or your wider life. Here I’ve focused on mental health, but there are a multitude of topics represented through the arts.
Painting
"The Scream" is a universally recognised piece of art, portraying the essence of anxiety, panic and fear. Did you know Munch wrote on his painting, “Can only have been painted by a madman”?
What do you think when you look at “The Scream”?
Salvador Dali, famed for his surrealist art, was strongly Influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, believing in the power of dreams as untapped reservoirs of the mind, with many of his paintings symbolising distorted memories from dreams. His work “The Face of War”, captured the essence of human emotions during the tumultuous second World War.
We may consult veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress, or patients with mental health problems that find a creative outlet through art. Exploring these works can provide an insight to the mind of someone experiencing a mental illness.
Music
When Beethoven began to lose his hearing, he was forced to use an ear trumpet and bite a metal rod on his piano, in order to experience music. As he became deaf, he contemplated suicide, before he later died of liver cirrhosis, contributed to by excessive alcohol. I saw his skull on display at the Josephinum Museum in Vienna, where the cause of his deafness had been investigated, after his remains were donated to the museum by his family.
Music can have a great healing power- I have patients who have coped with bereavement through playing music and joining a choir, while others use favourite playlists as a mechanism to manage self-harm thoughts. Beethoven’s story highlights the connection between physical and mental health and how important the senses are to our wellbeing. He also demonstrates how music can be experienced in different ways by people with hearing loss.
Classics
Psyche was a mortal woman from Greek Mythology. After falling in love with Eros, god of desire, she was manipulated by her sisters into betraying him. Seeking forgiveness, she was given a series of impossible tasks to complete by Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who envied her beauty. Through perseverance she was able to complete the tasks and be reunited with Eros, when she was transformed into a goddess. The Greek word psyche means soul, with Pysche representing the human soul’s triumph over life’s misfortunes in pursuit of happiness.
Psyche’s myth is a reminder of the challenges people face in life, that can be overcome with determination. It’s also a prompt to consider how often you explore love and relationships in people presenting with mental health problems.
History
The Narrenturm (Fool's Tower) in Vienna, is Europe's oldest psychiatric hospital, built in 1784. It’s now home to a museum housing anatomical specimens within cold, dank rooms where patients once slept- when I wandered down this corridor, the rooms were reminiscent of prison-cells.
A reminder of how historically, people with mental health problems were stripped of their liberties and often confined to eerie buildings like this. Do we still carry stigmas that we should reflect on?
Poetry
I was recently contacted by a retired colleague who is writing a book of poetry, combining this with her artwork. Alone by Edgar Allan Poe is a famous poem, offering reflections on a solitary childhood.
We know how mental health problems can often stem from childhood experiences, a reminder to explore these in patients who present with complex problems.
Film
Hopefully you’re familiar with Batman! Many have tried to decipher what condition the Joker has- he has features of certain personality traits, including psychopathy and narcissism. Some portrayals of the joker perpetuate a misconception that severe mental illness is always linked to violence, when in fact, people with severe mental illness can be more vulnerable to violence from others. How do you respond to people with severe mental illness?
The film Ordinary People, traces the recovery of Conrad from a severe bout of depression and attempted suicide. We discover this is brought on by his brother's death, for which he feels responsible. Loss can be a powerful force and often people can inappropriately blame themselves, like children who experience parental separation. This film focuses on the positive input of a psychiatrist- the difference a compassionate clinician can make.
Books
The book, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest’, centres on a man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who struggles when confined to an institution, where he is frustrated by the rigid treatments imposed on him and other patients. The story reminds us there is not always one way to treat those with mental health issues- a creative, individualised approach is needed to best support someone’s recovery.
Hopefully this blog has sparked you to consider further exploring the links between art and medicine, not just on the theme of mental health, but on a multitude of other topics. These few examples demonstrate how valuable connecting with the arts can be for our patients too.
If you’d like to submit a blog to WiseGP, please get in touch!
Dr Annabelle Machin, WiseGP Fellow
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