When art therapy went chemical: Alfred Bader, pharmacology, and art brut, c.1950-1970s.
Historia, ciencias, saude--Manguinhos January 1, 2023 Jelena Martinovic 2 citations
Psychopharmacology reshaped the relationship between art and psychiatry, repositioning the origins of art therapy within evolving clinical practices and discourses on mind-altering drugs. The article traces the use of psychotropic drugs in connection with psychopathology of art in the early twentieth century, then focuses on two post-Second World War experiments with psilocybin by psychiatrist Alfred Bader and pharmacologist Roland Fischer. These examples show how consciousness became central to discussions of mental health, as psychotherapists increasingly framed art brut and modernist aesthetics in neurobiological terms to define madness as a social disease.