Mental health themed works in the visual arts and literature. 

The great American historian William Durant promoted a view of world events he called Integral or Total History. It was Durant's belief that studying history only through the eyes of political or social events created an understanding of history that was susceptible to the views of only those in power. Durant believed the real truth tellers were artists, playwrights, poets and musicians—they told the truth because they has no financial nor political power to lose. 

The truth of Durant's view of history can be seen clearly in the artistic interpretation of mental health through the centuries. Consider the many mental health references in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth. The Spanish artist Francisco Goya is perhaps the first artist to chronicle Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in his many paintings depicting emotional reactions to violence in his series The Disasters of War.  The horror of civil war is epitomized in the Giant or Colossus that illustrates the collective depression of the Spanish people. 

In the slide how below you will find, Bosch's depictionof the barbaric Middle Age's practice of trepanation of cutting a hole in someone's head to remove their mental illness. The English artist Richard Dadd portrays the equally barbaric practice of jailing and isolating the mentally ill in Agony. And perhaps the two most famous painting illuminating the psychological struggles with mental illness are Vincent Van Gogh's, Self Portrait with a bandaged Ear and Edvard Munch's The Scream. Finally, the tender but troubled Aya's Depression by modern artist, May Ann Lucudine powerfully portrays the struggles of youthful depression.

Poems with mental health themes 

Mental  health themes are woven into much of the tapestry of the modern expression of literature from novels, plays, musical lyrics, poetry and the Spoken Word. 

Perhaps the most high profile chronicling of the challenges of mental health are seen in Sylvia Plath's powerful semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. Sadly, Ms. Plath committed suicide only two weeks after finishing the work. She was thirty years old. The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (JRCM) provides an incredible clinical examination of the mental health challenges Sylvia Plath faced. It well worth a read (Sylvia Plath and the Depression Continuum.)  

Of course, Plath's own poetry powerfully depicted her battle with mental illness. In Mad Girl's Love Song, Ms. Plath describes her struggles to deal with the intense emotions associated with unrequited love:

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

In Fury of the Rainstorm, Anne Sexton uses a common theme among author's writing of depression "the inclement weather of life" to portray her depression:

Fury of the Rainstorm

The rain drums down like red ants,
each bouncing off my window.

The ants are in great pain
and they cry out as they hit
as if their little legs were only
stitche don and their heads pasted.

And oh they bring to mind the grave,
so humble, so willing to be beat upon
with its awful lettering and
the body lying underneath
without an umbrella.

Depression is boring, I think
and I would do better to make
some soup and light up the cave.

We'd like to read and share your poems dealing with mental health issues. You can find out how to share them with us here.