The program includes art trips for a month, visits to exhibitions and workshops to learn artistic practices
special
Under the high roof of an old pharmacy school transformed into a center for contemporary art in the coastal city of Montpellier in southern France, Andre, Kevin and Amber learn to make pottery under the watchful eyes of an artist. take part in an experimental program that uses art as a means of psychotherapy.
These three patients differ in age and life path, but share the same episodes of depression or anxiety, and are followed by the Psychiatric Emergency and Post-Emergency Department of Montpellier University Hospital.
These three weren’t particularly interested in the arts in the past, but they fully followed the steps required of them as part of this unusual treatment that lasts a few weeks entitled “Art with prescription”.
For the Mo.Co. of the city’s Center of Contemporary Art, and for the psychiatry department of the University Hospital, there is a common “conviction” that there is “an urgent need to raise public awareness of the benefits of artistic commitment for health mental”, according to Professor Philippe Courtet of the University Hospital Center of Montpellier.
This unprecedented project in France, inspired by previous experiences in Belgium, Canada and the United Kingdom, has one ambition, “to get patients out of hospital by prescribing art”, according to Courtier.
“This liberates us tremendously,” says student Amber Castiel, 17, with a smile on her face, as she pours paraffin into a clay mold. “When I’m here, I feel like everything that might be bothering me fades away,” she adds.
As for Kevin Genest, 23, he notes that his “natural anxiety is fading.” «Psychologists can be consulted, but the best thing is to do manual work, bring out what is inside of me», he says, expressing the pleasure of meeting «people with the same problems» and expressing his willingness to «go to the museum more frequently.”
Breaking of insulation
“It’s a workshop on soft and flexible materials, which deform and change from a solid to a liquid state upon contact with the hand, allowing you to engage in experimentation,” explains visual artist Susie Lelliver.
In addition to them, Andre Broseau, 60, is pleased to “improve” his way of using his hands this time, “after starting last year to learn the principles of physical expression, under the supervision of the dancer Anne Lopez .
“Dance has given me the art of integrating into a group, which was not easy at first, as well as a greater confidence in the way I express myself, to move,” she recalls.
“Here it’s not the artists who go to the patients, but the patients who go to the museum, meet the artists and enter their world,” confirms Elodie Michel, a psychiatry expert at Montpellier University Hospital.
In 2022, this program included three groups of about ten patients. This includes month-long art trips, visits to exhibitions and workshops to learn about art practices.
At each session they were accompanied by a fine arts student and a psychiatry trainee, in particular responsible for the scientific evaluation of the project.
This experience is completely free for the participants, financed by the Mo.Co Technical Centre, the Provincial Health Authority, the Provincial Directorate for Cultural Affairs, as well as by the city of Montpellier, which has the oldest medical school still in service in the world.
“We hope this program will be extended to everyone and can be paid for through Social Security,” says Numa Ambursen, director of the Mo.Co Art Center, noting that in Canada therapists can prescribe up to 50 museum visits a year for the their patients.
