HIGHLIGHTED TEXT: Therapeutic Museum
Headline: The healing power of museums
Standfirst: Julie Nightingale asks, can a museum be, literally, good for
our health and our psychological health in particular?
Author: Julie Nightingale
BODY: Beverley (not her real name) had cancer and despite medics’
repeated efforts to encourage her to take advantage of counselling, had so
far refused to unburden herself anywhere other than to Dr Vodka in the pub.
All shoulders to cry on, from family and friends to kindly specialist nurses,
were rebuffed. After some time, it was a small bronze cat that unlocked
Beverley’s emotions.
The bronze cat, part of a handling collection from the Petrie Museum, was
introduced as part of research by University College London’s (UCL)
Institute for Women’s Health into the potential benefits of object handling
for women facing a gynaecological cancer diagnosis. Not just any old feline
statuette, it represented the Goddess of Mothering and it was this that
touched Beverley so deeply.
“It has resonance for a lot of women [with cancer] who either can’t have
children or won’t see theirs grow up,” says Helen Chatterjee, a lecturer in
Biology in the School of Medical and Life Sciences at UCL and deputy
director of the university’s Museums and Collections. “This woman, who
had been very resistant, when she was handed this little figure, suddenly
began talking about how cancer had affected her.”
We know that collections have the power to uplift and to inspire and that
this may translate into improved wellbeing. But can the impact go beyond
raising the spirits to have a more tangible, permanent impact? Can a
museum be, literally, good for our health and our psychological health in
particular?
Research
The 2008 report, Museums of the Mind, from Culture Unlimited, argues that
they can and urges museums to make improving the nation’s mental health
specifically one of their core objectives, rather than treating it as an add on.
It followed a report from the UK Government Office for Science calling on
all government departments to take steps to boost the national wellbeing and
mental health by making it central to policy development.
Chatterjee is currently leading a research project, funded by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council, in this area, looking specifically at how
object handling sessions can have on people in hospital and residential care.
With colleagues from UCL hospitals, national and regional museums and
the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), she is examining a
range of issues around patient, carer, clinical staff and museum staff
responses.
It is the first attempt to collect some valid data on exactly what the impact is
of object handling sessions from all perspectives, she believes, although the
majority of museums run outreach programmes and are being urged to
expand access to their collections. The long-term aim is to pinpoint a
reliable protocol for how museums and galleries can engage with health.
The initial findings confirm what most museum professionals would predict
– that object handling sessions boosted patient wellbeing and patients’ own
perception of their state of health. It also signalled that patients felt positive
about the role of object handling sessions as a distraction from everyday life
in hospital.
One area that will have to be carefully assessed is the “deep emotional
responses evoked in hospitalised patients handling museum objects” – like
that of Beverley – and its long-term impact, says Chatterjee.
Related to this, another point that has emerged is the importance for people
running enrichment sessions of good communication and life skills to deal
with the reactions that objects may evoke in different types of patients.
Some student doctors who were involved in object handling sessions with
patients in early stages of the research found it hard to handle some of the
patients’ responses, for example.
“If you don’t have the necessary communication or life skills [to deal with
the responses], you need to have somebody you can turn to,” says
Chatterjee. Sometimes people reveal things even if you don’t expect or even
want them to and this may be because you are asking them how they
actually feel about something – an object – whereas in hospital people are
mainly asked about test results, not their wellbeing.”
General points
Numerous museums and galleries work in what we might call the
“wellbeing” field, running workshops and outreach with hospitals, nursing
homes, self-help groups and charities. They target people dealing with a
range of health problems – cancer, the aftermath of a stroke, post-traumatic
stress, personality disorder – although it is more often labelled education,
inclusion or community development rather than health or mental health.
This may be one reason why, according to those involved, such work does
not have a high profile and reaching those groups and individuals who could
benefit is an ongoing challenge, even for national high profile museums. If
you are embarking on work that you hope will appeal to organisations which
support people with health problems of one kind or another, then publicising
it directly to them should be a priority.
Another starting place should be the training package on social inclusion
and mental health awareness developed for museums and galleries staff,
Open to All. Put together by the MLA, national museums and teaching and
health bodies. The topics covered include understanding mental health and
mental ill health; stigma and discrimination; and arts and mental health.
Four half-day modules provide detailed trainer notes, aims, objectives and
outcomes, full lesson plans and all the resources required for each module. It
also includes over 50 short DVDs – interviews with people with experience
of mental health problems on specific themes.
Challenges
Dealing with people who are mentally ill, whether in the aftermath of a
serious illness diagnosis or as part of an ongoing condition, is challenging.
Logistically, you are often dealing with numerous partners and have to grasp
the intricacies of, for example, health service protocols and terminology. But
it can also be emotionally draining: people with depression relapse, sick
people die. And it is not always possible to progress through a series of
activities or learning as you might in an education session week after week
because of the nature of their health problems: people with Alzheimer’s
disease, for example, won’t necessarily remember you. (One museum
worker relates how she had seen an elderly man with Alzheimer’s into a lift
with her colleague, then run up the stairs to greet him as they emerged on
the floor above. As she stood there smiling the doors opened, whereupon he
looked at her and, curious, asked: “Who are you?” In less than a minute, his
brain had erased the memory of meeting her.)
Which is not to say that working with people who are sick or suffering is all
grim. But, possibly more so than any other field, it demands thorough
training, exceptional sensitivity, and a robust ability to keep going when
faced with strong emotions.
Organisation
As mentioned, museums tend to categorise the work they do under
education or inclusion. Tate Modern works with numerous organisations
with a health or mental health focus under its Community Arts programme
but the activities are exactly the same as those on offer to any other group in
adult education.
Similarly, Marilyn Scott, the director of the Lightbox in Woking, which has
built up close links with mental health professionals and people using
services locally, believes museums’ therapeutic role should be positioned as
part of a duty on inclusion.
“Rather than a clinical or medical role, [what museums and galleries can do]
is much more about inclusion. We have found in running our projects that
we had not realised how completely isolated people with mental health
issues can be from the kind of arts activities that one just takes for granted is
generally available, such as evening classes,” says Scott.
Partnerships
It hardly needs underlining that this is not the kind of work museums can
undertake from scratch by themselves. Everyone Museum Practice spoke to
for these Working Knowledge articles stressed the importance of
partnerships with specialist organisations, not only for contacting people
who might be interested but in tapping into the levels of expertise,
experience and inside knowledge. Different groups and individuals have
different needs. It might be the importance of biscuits to people with
Alzheimer’s or the lack of computer access for staff in care homes, details
no outsider could foresee.
Working in partnership with statutory health services in particular can also
help reinforce museums’ claim to be supporting local priorities as well as
the nation’s health and wellbeing. In Wolverhampton, the arts and museums
service has built up a close relationship with hospitals and the local primary
care trust, not only providing activities directly but also acting as a broker to
find other support and running joint research projects in areas such as child
obesity.
Angela Tombs, the head of education and outreach at Wolverhampton Arts
Museums says that because of uncertainties over grant funding on which
their work depends to a great degree, it is strategically and politically useful
for the museum to be seen as a prominent contributor to health and
wellbeing. “[The grant funding] may end next year so we see working with
health as important to our sustainability. We want the city council to see that
we are not just the city’s jewel in the crown, because jewels are too
expensive, but that we are essential,” she says.
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Weblinks
Open to All: www.socialinclusion.org.uk/work_areas/index.php?subid=109