Healthcare professionals need to develop empathic skills: Tischler's book on mental health

Doctors and other healthcare professionals should use the arts and humanities to develop their empathic skills and improve mental healthcare practice, according to a new book.

Mental Health, Psychiatry and the Arts, edited by Dr Victoria Tischler in the Division of Psychiatry at The University of Nottingham, argues that visual art, poetry writing, novels and music can be used in the education of medical and nursing students and other mental health professionals to improve their understanding of the patient experience.

And the pleasure they can bring can also act as a mechanism for coping with the stresses of working with those who have mental health problems.

"The book aims to provide evidence of the value of the arts and humanities in the teaching of doctors and other mental healthcare professionals," said Dr Tischler. "My own students have responded positively to this mode of teaching; they have begun to paint, act and write poetry and some have read their first novel since starting medical school".

"It helps them to relate better to patients and also to deal with a demanding vocational career choice. It is the first book of its kind, so I hope it will guide and inspire others in establishing teaching in this area."

The comprehensive book, published by Radcliffe Publishing, includes contributions from clinical staff, service users and academics and explores how visual art, cinema, music, poetry, literature and drama can inform the teaching and practice of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.

The book was launched at the 1st International Health Humanities conference on The University of Nottingham's Jubilee Campus from August 6. Focused on the theme of Madness and Literature, the conference attracted delegates from around the world, including Australia, North America, Europe and the Middle East.

The conference was the first event of its kind in the world to bring together people from a medical and psychiatric background with literary and humanities experts, alongside users of mental health services and their carers to promote collaboration and to enhance the human elements of clinical care.

Keynote speakers at the conference were leading literary scholar Professor Elaine Showalter, Professor Kay Redfield Jamison, Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders, Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center, and Professor Paul Crawford, the first Professor of Health Humanities, based in Nottingham's School of Nursing and Midwifery and Physiotherapy.

The event was organised as part of the Madness and Literature Network led by academics at Nottingham, which encourages debate between academics, clinicians, mental health service users and carers on what benefits literature can have in developing empathy skills and offering broader insights into mental illness than are available in a clinical textbook. The Madness and Literature Network, founded by Professor Paul Crawford, Charley Baker, Dr Brian Brown, Dr Maurice Lipsedge and Professor Ronald Carter, is a partnership between The University of Nottingham, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Institute of Mental Health, De Montfort University, and was informed by work conducted with generous funding from The Leverhulme Trust.

Source: University of Nottingham