In the October 25 edition of Muses features the poetic prose of psychiatrist Bahjat Najeeb, whose encounter with the monumental Basilica Cistern in Istanbul set his muse on a fine meditation on the fraught nature of Borderline Personality Disorders. …
Author: Marcos Leonardo Juarez Aguaysol In the September 25 edition of Muses – This month’s edition is a treat from Argentina.…
Author: Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International [[email protected]] In the August 25 edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International, introduces Colin, the artist whose work is on the cover of the latest edition of BJPsych International.…
It has been three years since Muses, the art blog of BJPsych International, was launched. Although time travels fast, reflection is an active process of slowing time down to take stock of what time has bequeathed us.
Sally Osborn is a ceramic artist who lives and works in Berlin and Glasgow. Her art is compelling in its abstract structure and which requires great skill to create. The roughness of the unglazed ceramic adds beauty to its sensuous shape.
It was a grey, overcast day, and the steady rain outside seemed to reflect my own sense of unease as I walked through the dimly lit corridor into the main hall of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Having recently relocated to this new country, every step felt like a mix of excitement and discomfort as I tried to adjust to the unfamiliar. I stopped beneath Sophie Cave's Expression installation
This month’s edition of Muses features a lucid review of Dr. Benji Waterhouse’s You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here, written by Nigerian psychiatrist, Ayeyemi Obabire. Waterhouse’s book is the portal for Obabire’s musings on becoming an International Medical Graduate (IMG) psychiatrist. Obabire’s passion for the mentally ill and disillusion with his natal country’s mental healthcare triggered his relocation to England’s NHS where he imagined better outcomes for the mentally ill.
John Offenbach is a London based, award-winning and published photographer, who after a career in advertising returned to academia to pursue scholarly research alongside an artistic practice. After graduating with an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2024, he is currently continuing there with a second masters in research. His degree show entitled ‘Palimpsest' received the Genesis Imaging bursary award.
This edition of Muses features a moving and exceptionally vulnerable disclosure by Nigerian mental health advocate Ezinne Ogwumah, who reflects on her mental health journey and intermittent cannabis use. An addiction isn't exactly a thing one readily admits to. It is associated with shame, guilt and hard choices. I chose the shame of indulging in cannabis over the crushing stress of work, love, and life.
The December 2024 edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features a moving piece by a psychiatrist, poet and pianist about loss and the healing quality of poetry and music.
Ahmed Emad Eldin is a digital artist, with a background in pharmacy and psychology, recognized globally for his work on Pink Floyd’s “The Endless River” album cover and listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2023.
When Fontane suggested an artistic collaboration portraying the struggles of identity in modern motherhood to Priya, Priya entered the words 'Bharatanatyam' and 'harp music' into an online search engine. The search result was unsatisfactory, hence the realisation of creating everything from scratch. A herculean task, it seemed. But isn't motherhood as well? From when a crying baby is placed in our hands, we fumble along the way, often uncertain of what we are doing.
In the September edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Dami Ajayi reviews Nigerian writer Tukura John Daniel’s memoir about his lived experience with Bipolar Affective Disorder, How to Spell Bipolar.
This edition of Muses celebrates the artwork of visual artist and psychiatrist Lakshmi Sravanti’s Embrace Yourself: Nurture the Inner Sufferer. It is the second in her ongoing series contemplating the human condition as it pertains to mental illness.
Writing was refreshing to me because I was communicating again. However, I didn’t fully understand the extent until I watched Dead Poets Society, where the late Robin Williams delivered this moving monologue. He said, “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
In the May 24 edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Henrietta Graham, the artist whose work is on the cover of the May 2023 Issue latest edition of BJPsych International.
When the editorial board of BJPsych International acceded to the launch of a web-based monthly arts blog, I volunteered as the commissioning editor. I did this partly because I already straddled the worlds of psychiatry and the creative arts. But also because it was an opportunity to be a part of something new.
The March edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features Nigerian poet Pamilerin Jacob who writes about being diagnosed with mental illness, his recourse to poetry, poetics and poetic language for therapy, meaning and vocation. He also pays a moving tribute to a friend who was instrumental to his survival.
Alison Wilding has always been fascinated by deadly, beautiful things, either found in nature or when manufactured, and specifically in regard to the latter, the realm of the military machine.
In March 2017, a medical doctor ordered his driver to stop on the Third Mainland Bridge, came down from his car and jumped into the Lagos Lagoon. Traditional media platforms and social media buzzed with this tragic news. It was not the usual fare: that cocktail of pernicious poverty, drug use, and wanton criminality; this was a gentleman. It unveiled a severe concern about that taboo subject, mental health.
I sat on a Zoom call with a psychologist from Edinburgh. My mental state, not my autistic son's, was in question.
Sue Morgan completed a doctorate in German philosophy and worked in the city as a corporate tax lawyer before being forced to retire in 1998 because of a diagnosis of schizo-affective disorder.
I am bipolar. Diagnosed at age 18. Since I received my diagnosis of Bipolar Affective Disorder, I have relied on friends during my relapses when I am unable to look after myself and be responsible for my actions.
The Akan people of Ghana, like many other collectivist cultures, have deeply engrained concepts of interdependence and support for each other. These concepts have been passed on for generations in the Adinkra symbols. Each symbol possesses an intrinsic meaning and represents virtues, values or beliefs critical to the Akan experience of life.
As Pictures Editor, I selected Peter Eddie's art for the August cover because of his intriguing drawings of faces and his enthusiastic use of any surface, here water cups. The rows of faces appear like an audience, looking out on us the viewer and reader of this journal.
The July 2023 edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features an article by Dr Olasunkanmi Onifade, Oral Medicine Consultant, Nigeria.
My life as I knew it changed in the autumn of 2019. I started a new job in a new city in a new country. To further tip the scale, my aisle-destined engagement began to fail that summer, with unresolved conflicts sporadically rearing their heads in five cities on three continents. That summer, my laptop (and all my precious writing and dissertation) was stolen on a flight from London to Lagos.
As pictures editor, I selected Peter Grundy's art for the February cover because of his striking designs that simply portray complicated issues. Peter Grundy is one of the world's leading information designers. Peter Grundy states his designs and illustrations aim to turn complex information into simple visual stories in a world of modern messiness.
The April edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features an interview with Tunmise Kuku, a Nigerian radio broadcaster and mental health advocate who has been open about her diagnosis of Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder. Three years ago, she took a deliberate career break to write Living Mindfully: A Journey of Being, a memoir that draws from her experiences and stories. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
No writer’s life and work has had a more profound impact on me than that of Bessie Head, a woman who was born in a psychiatric hospital in South Africa, raised in foster care and later exiled to Botswana, a country she simultaneously loved and hated. By the time she died in 1986, Head had published several novels, including A Question of Power, which she described as “almost autobiographical” in its account of the life of Elizabeth, a woman in the midst of a psychological crisis against the backdrop of her country’s political struggles. I am afraid of readingthis novel againbecause of how vividly it evokes a memory from my medical school days, of a psychiatric evaluation with a patient exhibiting dissociation symptoms and who was later diagnosed with comorbid schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder.
In this edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Albert, the artist whose portrait is on the cover of the February 2023 issue of BJPsych International.
The January edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features a review of a memoir about mental illness and recovery by UK-based Nigerian psychiatrist Victoria Olasegha.
I once met a woman admitted following a suicide attempt. She spent four weeks in the psychiatric hospital where I had many interviews with her during my morning rounds. During one of such interviews, she said to me, “I was a writer and I love to read and write poetry, like Alejandra Pizarnik.” I found this interesting because I also love literature.
In the November edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Sarah Kogan, the artist whose portrait is on the cover of the November edition of BJPsych International.
The October edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features a short blog by Motswana visual artist, Sedireng Mothibatsela, who writes about a crucial moment in her artistic development which coincides with her parent’s separation. It is a moving piece about how visual arts intersects with trauma and healing. I can recall the afternoon that changed how I create. I was 12 years old and in my last year of primary school and the looming high school years ahead presented many questions about how I wanted to proceed with my art. I had painted a watercolour still life and I was bored with it. Although my art received praise from my family and peers, my handling of watercolour was juvenile at best. I needed more; technically and conceptually. It was then that I began to question the art making process. Like most young artists in primary school we were simply taught that “good art is pretty art.”
The September edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features an article by Sabrina Coleman-Pinheiro, a visual artist of Nigerian, British and Sudanese lineage.…
In the August edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Gemma Anderson, the artist whose portrait is on the cover of the August edition of BJPsych International.…
The July edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International –features a short interview with Nora Awolowo, a Nigerian film director whose documentary film Baby Blues: Trials of Childbirth is a 74-minute-long exposé about maternal mental health in Nigeria.…
The June edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International –features an article by Remi Olutimayin, a Nigeria-born voice director of animation.…
In the May edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Mr X, the artist whose work is on the cover of the May 2022 issue.…
As pictures editor I selected Courtney’s art as it is a powerful, beautiful, enigmatic image of identity and mental health. It is difficult to make an artwork that sensitively visualises the experience of illness and recovery. Courtney’s work does both, in a strong portrait that immediately gains attention. It is a fitting cover and I am proud that a patient artist has created this work that speaks so clearly to the international audience of the journal.
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
How long will humankind survive? Besides the fact that we have been able to eliminate ourselves with nuclear weapons for decades, even without a third world war, the challenge to take care of the resources of our planet remains; we need to use them in a way that our children and their children can have a place on Earth as well. In this blog post Andreas Losch discusses his recent review article in the International Journal of Astrobiology, The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability
Q&A with Editor-in-Chief of the Precision Medicine Journal, Dame Anna Dominiczak, for International day of Women and Girls in Science
This is the first post in our new series: “Conversations with Authors.” For our inaugural post, we asked Dr. Vesla Weaver to meet (virtually) with Dr.…
Maria is a smallholder farmer in rural Singida, Tanzania. We worked together for the past few years on the Singida Nutrition and Agroecology Project (SNAP-Tz), a nutrition-sensitive agroecological intervention that sought to improve children’s diet. In it, farmers learned about and experimented with sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and gender equity using an integrated and participatory curriculum
In an era of shrinking research budgets and political pressure to justify public investment, federally funded digital archives in archaeology are delivering measurable, lasting benefits to scholars, land managers, Indigenous communities, and the public.…
In the May 1991 issue of PMLA, then editor John W. Kronik begins his “Editor’s Note” by announcing that the current volume of the journal “has elicited strong responses, praise as well as reproof, even before the year is out” (393).…
Many eco-scholars today have lamented our current tendency to soft denial. We acknowledge major environmental concerns such as climate change while continuing to go about our lives as if they don’t exist.…
How long will humankind survive? Besides the fact that we have been able to eliminate ourselves with nuclear weapons for decades, even without a third world war, the challenge to take care of the resources of our planet remains; we need to use them in a way that our children and their children can have a place on Earth as well. In this blog post Andreas Losch discusses his recent review article in the International Journal of Astrobiology, The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability
It is an article of faith among ordinary Filipinos that American troops will die with Filipino troops defending Philippine claims to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (SCS).…
More and more research is finding inflammation as a potential contributing factor towards to the development of various mental illnesses. A systematic review was conducted to determine the association between parasitic infection and mental illnesses in various African populations. Two parasite groups were evaluated; helminths and protozoans, and four mental illness classifications; depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, schizotypal disorders and unspecified mental illnesses.
This is the first post in our new series: “Conversations with Authors.” For our inaugural post, we asked Dr. Vesla Weaver to meet (virtually) with Dr.…
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
Q&A with Editor-in-Chief of the Precision Medicine Journal, Dame Anna Dominiczak, for International day of Women and Girls in Science
The opportunity to showcase some of the exciting archaeological research currently underway on medieval Ethiopia in a journal as widely read as Antiquity is important.
Listen to @BBCRadio4's Start the Week, featuring @NineDotsPrize winner @jkkusiak, talking about her book, 'Radically Legal'. Learn how a group of ordinary people inspired the book when they reclaimed over 240,000 apartments back from corporate landlords 🔗
Start the Week - ‘Left behind’, but not forgotten - BBC Sounds
Tom Sutcliffe with Paul Collier, Joanna Kusiak and Matthew Xia.
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