Psychiatry Clinic
The use of artistic methods to treat psychological disorders and enhance mental health is known as art therapy.
Art therapy is a technique rooted in the idea that creative expression can foster healing and mental well-being. Art, either creating it or viewing others' art, is used to help people explore emotions, develop self-awareness, cope with stress, boost self-esteem, and work on social skills.
according to the Journal of Art Thereapy, by “the middle of the 20th century, many hospitals and mental health facilities began including art therapy programs after observing how this form of therapy could promote emotional, developmental, and cognitive growth in children. The discipline continued to grow from there becoming an important tool for assessment, communication, and treatment of children and adults alike.” it also allows you to express your feelings and work through issues. Art therapy is becoming increasingly popular for victims of trauma, prisoners, and people who are working through a difficult time.
Mental health patients are people with special needs for which architectural interventions can be helpful. The interior spaces inside most of the common hospitals often do not provide the proper environment for therapeutic progress, nor do they contribute to the implementation of new programs for care.
We aim to create healing, efficient and safe environments for those patients, staff, and visitors, by using the right colors and artworks on the walls and ceilings, friendly and easy way-finding concepts, and by using the right technology such as embedded TVs, Sky ceilings and artworks.
New York state psychiatric institute and hospital published a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology called Colour Preference in the Insane.
Assisted by a Dr Cheney, Katz tested 134 hospitalized patients with mental health problems. For simplicity's sake, he limited the testing to six colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. No black. No white. No shades of grey.
"These colours," he wrote, "rectangular in shape, one and one-half inches square, cut from Bradley coloured papers were pasted in two rows on a grey cardboard. They were three inches apart. The colours were numbered haphazardly and the number of each colour placed above it. The cardboard was presented to the patient and he was asked to place his finger on the number of the colour he liked best. After he had made the choice he was asked in a similar manner for the next best colour, and so on."
Some of the patients "cooperated well", and made six choices. Others, Katz reported, "quickly lost interest and made only one, two or three".
Blue was the most popular colour. Men, in the aggregate, then favoured green, but women patients were divided on green, red or violet as a second choice
Patients who had resided in the hospital for three or more years were slightly less emphatic about blue. Katz says these long-term guests were "those with most marked mental deterioration". Their preference, as a group, shifted towards green and yellow.
Those of longest tenure, though few in number, had a slightly elevated liking for orange.
The report is packed with titbits that beg, even now, for further analysis:
· 38% of schizophrenics and manic depressives, each, gave first preference to blue, and 42% of all other patients
· Green received the first choice from 16% of schizophrenics, 9% of manic depressives, and 13% of other diseases
