Mental illness and art (movies and music included)

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Having spent much of the past few weeks frequenting art galleries like the Met and the Art institute in Chicago to give my cultural brain cells a boost i thought I would start a thread about art

I think going into psychiatry this year as a first year resident obviously tells you a little about what makes me tick and am usually attracted to pieces or art that spark some sort of introspection.

Wouldn't mind sharing some favourite paintings, books or documentaries which we could all appreciate in our down time with the added benefit of it being beneficial to our careers.

I'll start....

I love comics and there are a couple of good ones about mental health
http://graphicmedicine.org/

http://www.artofpsychiatry.co.uk/

Great documentary by an English dude (Adam Curtis). All of his others are greats but this is the one concerned with psychiatry and the manipulation of mass populations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxfA...e_gdata_player

Caravaggio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_w...ead_of_Goliath

I love the century of the self - saw it 10 years ago and recently re-watched it. I especially liked the 4th episode which looks at how reagan, thatcher, clinton and blair used ideas of ego psychology to obtain power.

I teach courses in madness and literature and cinema and psychiatry so will put list some of my recommendations when i get a moment.

Gabbard has a book on Psychiatry and the Cinema he wrote with his brother.

Eric Kandel (Nobel Prize Winning Neuroscientist) also was just on sciencefriday talking about his new book, which sounds excellent --
The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present

http://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/

The Cure of Folly portrays a Dr removing the "stone of madness"




This is good as well on the Sistine Chapel. Especially with regard to the idea that a brain stem is included in God throat. God's word is from the mind of man?

http://journals.lww.com/neurosurgery...ngelo_s.1.aspx

Originally Posted by tensin79

Great documentary by an English dude (Adam Curtis). All of his others are greats but this is the one concerned with psychiatry and the manipulation of mass populations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxfA...e_gdata_player

Kenneth Clark's Civilisation is well worth the time as well.

Civilisations and this old documentary called Connections make a nice pair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pvm4...e_gdata_player

Also if you like art and stuff this one From Simon Sharma helped me appreciate and put into context some of the well known works of art you might encounter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnv2a...e_gdata_player

The art of psychiatry

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Redfield Jamison




Great, great book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMWFh...e_gdata_player

Great doc, more connected with neurology but would still recommend it due to PTSD

Concerning Seroquel abuse...

Two rap songs have lyrics where the performer mentions getting high on Seroquel. One is by Eminem. Both songs are on Youtube, and if you look at the lyrics--it's all there.

Don't believe me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2I0MJZpAYg
Check it out at 2 minutes

Scarecrow, scarecrow Explainwhats that you popping?
A powerful pill they call Oxycontin
But it'so tiny, that it catch you dragging
Haven't you heard big things come in small packages
I prefer the orange's with the black O-C
Take two and you cannot move up out your seat
Some people melt em' down in a needle and shoot 'em up
Buy I pop 'em with Seroquel like glue, I am stuck

Or this song by Eminem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTXKaqgBKVY
Check it out at 3 minutes

Tonight, tonight is the night, and tell her I must
Creep up to her mansion in stilettos and just
Climb the gate and ring the bell, Like hello my love
I just picked your prescription for Seroquel up
Now would you like to share a pill or two with me?
I'll share my valium with you, cause I'm feelin' you Britney

Oh and did you know there was a study where 61 drug dealers and users in Las Vegas all carried Seroquel but no other atypical antipsychotic? I wonder why? IT MUST BE BECAUSE THESE DRUG DEALERS WANT TO TREAT MENTAL ILLNESS. YEAH THAT'S IT. THAT'S THE TICKET.

Am J Psychiatry. 2007 Feb;164(2):350.
Black-market value of antipsychotics, antidepressants, and hypnotics in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tarasoff G, Osti K.

I never really understood seroquel as a drug of abuse. What dosage are they taking? I presume the effect they're going for is sedation. How is it qualitatively different than benadryl at low doses?

My favourite child psychotherapist chatting about art and madness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QApMVg8-yWw

Originally Posted by thoffen

I never really understood seroquel as a drug of abuse.

Crush it up and snort it and it's a pleasing, sedating high. Big in the jails and prisons. It's also popular on the street, though most folks I've talked to outside of the forensic population use it to come down off a coke or meth binge.

Pharmacologically, it's a mystery. For example, we know that several drugs of abuse stimulate the nucleus accumbens. Seroquel may do that but as far as I know I've never seen any data showing it does.

If you go to Erowid.org, a website for people who wish to "enlighten" themselvse through the use of substances, they have a type of wiki were people can document their experiences on several substances.

There are several people who wrote that taking Seroquel gave them quite a nice experience. One guy wrote that he listened to Japanese music while on it and the high made the listening experience much better.

Allegedly, according to several drug abusers I've treated, Seroquel, when mixed with cocaine (nicknamed "Cue-Ball") gives an effect about as good as a "speedball" (opioids mixed with cocaine).

As mentioned above, there is speculation that some of it's street value isn't so much to get high but because it helps people get off an opioid, amphetamine, or cocaine crash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI