Mental Health
- Comments
-
Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 1199 objects representing mental health care and therapies in Scotland. These include objects which were retrieved from hospitals in and around Glasgow in the 1990s which were closing and being transformed in the light of the then government’s ‘care in the community’ strategy. The hospitals represented in the collection include the Glasgow Royal Mental Hospital (formerly known as the Glasgow Royal Lunatic Asylum founded in 1814), Gartnavel, Woodilee, Hawkhead and Gartloch. Examples of medical equipment, prints, published administrative reports and awards made to patients and wards for competitions. As well as representing institutions the collection also represents treatments and therapies through equipment and art. Examples of equipment include those generally such as those used for electroconvulsive therapy, formerly known as electroshock therapy, used in the treatment of patients with mental health challenges. The largest collection in the mental health collection represents art therapy. It was called Art Extraordinary by its collector who was Scotland’s pioneering art therapist, Joyce Laing (c.1928 – 2020). This collection represents her career which extended from mental health care to providing art tuition and classes within Scottish criminal justice.
- Broader term