“Still I Rise”, by Maya Angelou, is a poem about the adversity and racism faced by Angelou and many other African-American individuals throughout history. In…
In their song, ‘High Hopes’, the alternative-rock band Kodaline tries to convey a sense of optimism to the listener through lyrics like, “But I’ve got…
Patrick Howse, an ex-BBC producer, wrote the poem ‘The District Line’ as a way to come to terms with his diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress…
Sara Roizen is an artist and licensed board-certified creative arts therapist. Sara leads an art therapy class to help individuals struggling with mental illness. In her…
“The Grand Optimist” is written and performed by Dallas Green, of City and Colour. The lyrics convey a sense of losing hope—feelings often described by…
Zaneta Pernicova painted this piece after her husband was diagnosed with a brain cyst that altered his mental and emotional state. Pernicova also noticed changes…
The music video for “Elastic Heart”, by Australian recording artist Sia, portrays an interpretive dance between a man and child that is meant to depict…
Patrick Howse, a former producer with the BBC, wrote about his experience in Iraq between 2004 and 2009 after a diagnosis of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder….
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 devastated the two cities and countless lives. Some survivors coped with their grief through art,…
Edward Hopper was an American painter famous for his depictions of people’s everyday life and struggles. His most famous painting, Nighthawks, depicts people sitting at a…
Lesley Oldaker uses bleak and gloomy shades of grey in her paintings, a particularly famous of which is entitled “Passing Through.” The paintings are often filled with…
“Darkness is a harsh term, don’t you think, and yet it dominates the things I see” is a line from Roll Away Your Stone by…
Anne Sexton (1928-1974) was an American poet known for her “confessional verse”—a very personal style of poetry. She is known to have suffered from several…
The British Journal of Psychiatry has a collection of pages of art about mental illness from the Royal College of Psychiatry’s “Psychiatry in Pictures” project….
William Utermohlen, who suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease, used painting as an outlet to illuminate his experiences and the progression of his symptoms. All of the…
The Ottawa Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience exists in part to establish links between scientific discourse and people interested in mental health. An art gallery they…
Developed by Swiss psychologist Charles Koch in 1952, the Baum test is a simple drawing test to analyze an individual’s personality and underlying emotional history….
William Korelek was a Canadian artist who suffered from mental illness. His two most famous works, “The Maze” and “Out of the Maze,” reflect his…
Sujith Rathnayake developed a psychotic illness after losing his family during the 2004 tsunami. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Sri Lanka where…
Michael Kimber’s visual poem tells the story of his battle with anxiety. Diagnosed at 25, Kimber explains how counseling and the support from his loved…
