Using artwork to understand the experience of mental illness: Mainstream artists and Outsider artists

Date:

July, 2008

Authors:

I have found another intersection of art and the mind: artwork produced by the psychotherapist with the emotional experience of the client as the subject. For the last two years, I have been making paintings depicting the depression, mania, psychosis, and compulsions of my clients. The paintings have become part of the bond between us, and are integrated into our psychotherapy. My initial purpose was to enter into the clients’ world of mental illness to help me understand it better. The paintings have done that, and more – they have helped the clients by making tangible their intangible experiences.