Psychology - Mental Health

For this final discussion board question, we’d like you to think about deconstructing mental health-related stigma at a societal level: What responsibilities do museums and galleries have in presenting a history of madness, and (how) should potentially difficult or distressing themes and items be exhibited?

RUNNING HEAD: PSYCHOLOGY 0
Mental Health February 18
2020

PSYCHOLOGY 1
Mental health
Mental health includes human emotions, human psychology, and social well-being.
Mental health involves how humans think, communicate, and behave. Mental health also
involves how human deals with stress, and communicate with others. False beliefs or perceptions
of mental health issues cause problems. Stigma is when people or society views those people
negatively that is suffering from mental illness. Stigma often leads to discrimination. History can
be recorded and remembered because of museums and galleries. Museums help in educating
people. To remove the stigma attached to madness, it is essential to talk about it openly. For the
last two decades, museums have practiced displaying new ideas and approaches related to the
history of madness such as documents, paintings, and art collections. The traditional role of
museums is to display the thoughts and messages to the general public and increase their
knowledge about the respective topic. Education is a critical aspect of human development.
Museums educated people and help them in growing.
People with mental illness are asked to stay in asylums. They are needlessly isolated from social
surroundings. Art galleries or museums allow them to participate in art activities that help them
feel more social and accepted. Artworks act as a means of communication and connection with
one-self. Museums and are art galleries play a therapeutic role for people who are suffering from
mental health issues. For example, the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid brought a project "from
hospital to museum". In this, they partnered with psychiatric day hospitals and explored the
potential of art and tried to improve the quality of life for people with mental health issues. The
project successfully became therapeutic for the patients (Moulakaki, 2014).
Exhibiting madness in museums or art galleries offers a relative history of independent
and institutional collections of psychiatric objects (Coleborne & MacKinnon, 2012). The display
of the history of madness gives great responsibility to museums and art galleries because people's
perception or behaviour is directly affected. Also, the pictures are treated as straightforward
examples, because people connect with them instantly. The history of madness is a classic work
that challenges and makes people understand about madness. The display in the museums or art
galleries broadens the thinking and perception of people about psychiatric groups and allows us
to understand the madness. It also urges people to understand the liberating and creative forces

PSYCHOLOGY 2
madness includes. The history of madness is written by scholars which include lessons that
discuss madness in literature and visual arts.
Potentially difficult or distressing themes and items should be displayed in a way
that should not make people uncomfortable instead make them understand the hidden message in
the artwork. Museums and art galleries present such topics in a way that it looks interesting and
safe at the same time for society. The exhibition is structured in a way that visitors would meet a
narrative of the history of the asylum. Also, these exhibitions display the voices of patients that
were limited to the asylum.

PSYCHOLOGY 3
References
Coleborne, C., & MacKinnon, D. (2012). Exhibiting Madness in Museums: Remembering
psychiatry through collection and display. New York: Routledge.
Moulakaki, E. (2014). Museums & the Mentally Ill. Netherlands: Maastricht.