The connection between medical and health humanities

Behind every story of illness, there is a deeper story of life

Medical and health humanities matter. Literature, art, philosophy, history, and theatre all contribute to better understandings of illness, its meaning, and its treatment. Similarly, knowledge of clinical medicine helps practitioners in these other fields to understand more and enquire better. Medical and health humanities are a two-way street.

In a world increasingly obsessed with metrics and machines, the humanities offer a direct route back to human understanding and connection. Behind every story of illness, there is a deeper story of life, suffering, hope, and meaning.

Reading about grief, looking at a painting of suffering, or watching a play that grapples with despair can do something that no textbook ever will. It brings us closer to the inner world of people we try to help. It deepens compassion and grounds us in the rich, messy, hopeful reality of being human. And it helps us, as clinicians, to get through.

That is one reason why the play 4.48 Psychosis struck such a chord this summer. This remarkable play was a co-production by the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. It was also Sarah Kane’s final play, which was first performed in 2000 and focuses on an extreme state of mental illness. It is not an easy watch. It is raw, intense, and unapologetically questioning.

In addition, however, 4.48 Psychosis is one of the most honest portrayals of severe depression ever seen on stage. It is not a drama with neat resolutions or tidy plotlines. It is a visceral descent into a mind struggling to hold on and a brilliant, uncomfortable exploration of what it means to suffer.

I was fortunate to see 4.48 Psychosis in Stratford-upon-Avon in July. It offers no sentimentality and no easy answers. There is just truth, delivered with poetic force. That is what theatre can do at its best: Create space for us to feel things we do not have words for, and maybe, to understand them a little better.

Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum offered a very different, but equally compelling experience with its summer exhibition – Monomania. This, too, was a valuable contribution to the medical and health humanities, combining history, art, and medicine in new and exciting ways.

The Monomania exhibition was curated by artist Fiona Tan and presented her perspective on the imagination of the inner self and the rise of psychiatry at the beginning of the 19th Century. It explored the role of attentive observation in diagnosing mental ‘disorders’ such as ‘monomania’, which was a 19th Century term for a form of partial or temporary mental illness driven by a single pathological obsession or delusion.

For the exhibition, Tan took the painting Portrait of a Kleptomaniac (1822) by French artist Théodore Géricault as a starting point to explore her fascination with the origins of psychiatry. She brought us into the heart of how 19th Century science and art interlaced in their efforts to define the psyche.

The collection of works presented was extraordinary – paintings, books, engravings, sculptures, and video – all exploring the emergence of psychiatry and attitudes towards mental suffering and the mind. I was fortunate to attend the artist’s talk at the museum in mid-July. Tan did not just trace the birth of psychiatry. She urged us to reconsider where we draw the line between clinical diagnosis and human experience.

Bringing these threads together – the insights of the medical humanities, the stark power of 4.48 Psychosis and the curious beauty of Monomania – there is a shared theme: The importance of paying close attention to the inner lives of others and ourselves. Whether this occurs through art, theatre, or clinical work, we are asked to see the world from someone else’s perspective, to understand how they feel, and to reflect on what it means to be human.

In medicine, cultivating this awareness and presence is essential. Diagnoses are important, of course, and treatments can be lifesaving. But at the heart of it all is relationship, understanding, and care. The medical and health humanities help us to stay connected to that heart. They remind us that healing is not just about fixing – it is also about witnessing and being present. In an increasingly tech-driven world, that message is more valuable than ever.

Prof Brendan Kelly is Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin and author of Buddhism and Psychiatry: Moving Beyond Mindfulness in Mental Health Care (Open access: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-96045-1).