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Reversing the psychiatric gaze

Nineteenth-century psychiatrists were keen to categorise their patients’ illnesses reductively – by their physical appearance. But we can see a far more complex picture of mental distress, revealed by those patients able to express their inner worlds in art.

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Images

  • Physical exploration of the lungs by means of auscultation and percussion : a course of three lectures delivered by invitation before the Philadelphia County Medical Society / by Austin Flint.
  • An officer with a cap holding up a condom with numerous messages about condoms and how to use them; advertisement by the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health. Colour lithograph by Art Chantry.
  • A woman winks as she holds up a condom with the face of a man behind with numerous messages about condoms and how to use them; advertisement by the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health. Colour lithograph by Art Chantry.
  • Vases of flowers and a botanic garden with Saint Peter. Oil painting by O'Brien.
  • A sick man in a bed, receiving support from members of his friendly society. Engraving and letterpress, 1800.
  • A sick man in a bed, receiving support from members of his friendly society. Engraving and letterpress, 1800.
  • Two men outside their tent at Camp Tecumseh, near Schenectady, New York. Photographic postcard, 1912.
  • Two men outside their tent at Camp Tecumseh, near Schenectady, New York. Photographic postcard, 1912.
  • Thomas Parr, aged 152. Line engraving.
  • A black man looks up at the side profile of another man out of focus in the foreground representing an advertisement for the Northwest AIDS Foundation. Colour lithograph by Heath Printers.
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