1 00:00:06,630 --> 00:00:12,210 Thank you for inviting me to speak, I'm sorry not to be with you in person at the conference today, 2 00:00:12,210 --> 00:00:21,070 but I hope that this short talk will give you an overview about a new teaching development that I've been involved in in Oxford. 3 00:00:21,070 --> 00:00:26,230 Psychiatry is not often thought of as a pictorial discipline, however, 4 00:00:26,230 --> 00:00:34,690 observation and close attention to visual clues are a very important aspect of the psychiatric assessments. 5 00:00:34,690 --> 00:00:47,440 With this in mind, I've been involved in a collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, exploring psychiatry through images and through objects. 6 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:54,520 The Ashmolean Museum is part of the University of Oxford, and it really is a world class resource. 7 00:00:54,520 --> 00:01:01,030 There are amazing paintings, sculptures, drawings and archaeological artefacts in the museum, 8 00:01:01,030 --> 00:01:08,470 and it's free for all members of the university, but also for all members of the general public to go and look around. 9 00:01:08,470 --> 00:01:14,190 So it really is a fantastic resource for us in Oxford. 10 00:01:14,190 --> 00:01:22,920 Traditionally, however, the Ashmolean has been used as a teaching resource for the disciplines of art history and for archaeology, 11 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:32,160 but not for other university disciplines. That was until 2012 when the university engagement programme was developed. 12 00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:38,730 And this is a programme which has been funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 13 00:01:38,730 --> 00:01:47,460 Pictured here is Dr. Jim Harris. He is an art historian and a teaching curator with the University Engagement Programme. 14 00:01:47,460 --> 00:01:53,610 And I've worked very closely with him to see how we could use the resources of the Ashmolean to 15 00:01:53,610 --> 00:02:02,420 develop teaching sessions for psychiatrists that would be relevant to their clinical practise. 16 00:02:02,420 --> 00:02:09,770 We've developed a series of sessions and each session lasted approximately two hours. 17 00:02:09,770 --> 00:02:15,980 The sessions were open to all psychiatrists in Oxford and we targeted some sessions at specific groups. 18 00:02:15,980 --> 00:02:24,500 But we've given sessions to core trainees to advance trainees and to consultants for each session. 19 00:02:24,500 --> 00:02:30,380 We've selected between 10 and 15 images, objects, sculptures. 20 00:02:30,380 --> 00:02:34,970 And Jim Harris has provided an introduction to these images. 21 00:02:34,970 --> 00:02:39,320 And then we've had an informal discussion thinking about people's responses to 22 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:47,420 the images and what relevance that might have for their clinical practise. We've tended to limit the group sizes to about eight, 23 00:02:47,420 --> 00:02:58,390 and keeping the group small has meant that we've been able to have really quite rich discussions about the individual objects. 24 00:02:58,390 --> 00:03:05,650 I'm going to talk about two of the programmes today, and the first one was exploring emotions through images and objects, 25 00:03:05,650 --> 00:03:15,100 the aim of this was really to think about how mental illness has been presented through art and how emotional distress is presented. 26 00:03:15,100 --> 00:03:19,630 And the aim is to provide really an alternative viewpoints for clinicians to 27 00:03:19,630 --> 00:03:28,020 understand how their patients might present with different range of emotions. 28 00:03:28,020 --> 00:03:36,240 Here you can see two different images, and this is focussing on grief, so on the left, as you look at the screen, 29 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:46,020 is a drawing by Kaya's and it's three women mourning on the right is a drawing by Michelangelo called The Descent from the Cross. 30 00:03:46,020 --> 00:03:51,630 So two very different ways of portraying grief and of thinking about death. 31 00:03:51,630 --> 00:03:59,190 We looked at both these images in the museum study room, so we looked at them at very close range, and particularly for the Michelangelo. 32 00:03:59,190 --> 00:04:07,890 It was really quite extraordinary to see an original Michelangelo drawing and to be able to look at it in such detail. 33 00:04:07,890 --> 00:04:15,630 We also thought about anger and here is a pen and ink drawing by Barbieri called the enraged housewife. 34 00:04:15,630 --> 00:04:23,300 And I think you'll agree this is a very powerful image and gave us quite a lot to think about. 35 00:04:23,300 --> 00:04:30,110 And just one other example for you, this is an engraving by Albert Jura called Melancholia, 36 00:04:30,110 --> 00:04:40,770 and for a group of psychiatrists looking at this image, there's really much to comment on and much to think about. 37 00:04:40,770 --> 00:04:49,650 The next thing we thought about was age and ageing in art, and these sessions were attended mostly by old age psychiatrists. 38 00:04:49,650 --> 00:04:55,680 The aim here was to think about how old age is portrayed in an art, 39 00:04:55,680 --> 00:05:00,900 how that's changed over the years, and to think a little bit more broadly about ageing. 40 00:05:00,900 --> 00:05:04,890 What does it mean to be old? When do people start becoming old? 41 00:05:04,890 --> 00:05:10,020 And to think about the influences that older people have on society and art? 42 00:05:10,020 --> 00:05:16,710 That's particularly relevant because, of course, older people often had the most money and could purchase works of art, 43 00:05:16,710 --> 00:05:22,950 but also thinking about how they were portrayed. I've got two examples for you here. 44 00:05:22,950 --> 00:05:29,640 This one is a chalk drawing by Danny called head of an old man. 45 00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:36,690 And here is a portrait by Rembrandts, and this is called Portrait of an Old Man. 46 00:05:36,690 --> 00:05:43,860 So both those images give us much to think about when we're thinking about ageing, 47 00:05:43,860 --> 00:05:50,910 I think you'll agree, even in this short, short selection of images, we saw a huge range of things. 48 00:05:50,910 --> 00:05:58,320 And it was really quite amazing to see such high quality works of art and to use that as the focus for our discussion. 49 00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:03,740 And much of the feedback we had was very positive indeed. For me, 50 00:06:03,740 --> 00:06:10,100 the most important thing that arose out of these sessions was that people were able to use 51 00:06:10,100 --> 00:06:16,940 the images and use the reflections and discussion to think about their clinical practise. 52 00:06:16,940 --> 00:06:25,310 So people thought more deeply about how their patients presented with emotional distress, about what it means to be old, 53 00:06:25,310 --> 00:06:33,420 what it might mean for a patient to be referred to the old age service and how they might think that they're portrayed. 54 00:06:33,420 --> 00:06:41,730 When we were thinking about works of art, it was often important to think about the historical and the social context to work to the works of art, 55 00:06:41,730 --> 00:06:45,060 and that has an important parallel with current practise, 56 00:06:45,060 --> 00:06:50,760 because it's very important for us to think about the wider society context for our patients presentations. 57 00:06:50,760 --> 00:06:55,230 And so that was a useful parallel. 58 00:06:55,230 --> 00:07:03,600 The third thing, which I think was very important was about the space for reflection that learning in a museum provided. 59 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:12,630 So clinicians tended to come from hectic, busy NHS environments which are not renowned for their beauty. 60 00:07:12,630 --> 00:07:18,690 And they came to the Ashmolean, which is very elegant building with a lot of physical space. 61 00:07:18,690 --> 00:07:22,380 And I think actually coming to that environment and being able to reflect on 62 00:07:22,380 --> 00:07:30,790 clinical practise in that environment was an important aspect of the sessions. 63 00:07:30,790 --> 00:07:39,430 The important thing then is what do we do next and what is the wider applicability of this teaching initiative? 64 00:07:39,430 --> 00:07:46,690 Firstly, in terms of psychiatry, Jim Harris and I have got lots of ideas about how we can take this forward. 65 00:07:46,690 --> 00:07:51,040 We're intending to run sessions on dreams and visions and on gender. 66 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:59,260 And there are other ideas for themes is also possible to expand this idea for other medical specialities. 67 00:07:59,260 --> 00:08:08,750 And already a group of cardiologists have been to the Ashmolean and they have been looking at images of the human heart. 68 00:08:08,750 --> 00:08:13,130 There's a possibility for extending this to undergraduate teaching, 69 00:08:13,130 --> 00:08:22,170 and I think they're the focus on developing diagnostic skills and paying attention to visual cues is very important. 70 00:08:22,170 --> 00:08:30,660 And finally, thinking further afield, I hope that by talking about this initiative and this collaboration with the Ashmolean, 71 00:08:30,660 --> 00:08:34,890 it might encourage other people to develop collaborations with their local 72 00:08:34,890 --> 00:08:42,900 museums to think about the sorts of learning opportunities that there are there. 73 00:08:42,900 --> 00:08:50,010 In summary, medicine and psychiatry in particular has a long history of learning from the arts, 74 00:08:50,010 --> 00:08:57,000 and I hope this gives a more specific example of how we can do this now and about how learning from museums 75 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:06,330 and linking and looking at the objects in museums can help people to reflect on my clinical practise, 76 00:09:06,330 --> 00:09:13,570 particularly in psychiatry, but also in other medical disciplines. 77 00:09:13,570 --> 00:09:18,370 Finally, it's a shame that I'm not able to take questions from the audience at this moment. 78 00:09:18,370 --> 00:09:27,300 However, if you do have questions or if you'd like any further information, then please feel free to email me. 79 00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:34,485 Thank you very much.