There are three parts to the collection of the Museum Dr. Guislain. The first part deals with the medical history of psychiatry. The collection illustrates how primitive cultures would attribute madness to the influence of evil spirits and how, in the Middle Ages, people would be exorcised or burnt as witches, and how psychiatry grew into a veritable science in the course of the 19th centuries.

The second part consists in a collection of photographs: photographs dating back as far as 1860 and picturing life in a psychiatric institution. They illustrate the history of psychiatry and the radical changes that have taken place. But they also, and more practically, illustrate the way in which people would picture mental patients and people with handicaps in the past and how they picture them today. They should get people to the point where they stop thinking in stereotypes about psychiatric patients.

The third part is the outsider art collection. It has developed from a rather modest collection of works produced by people with psychic problems in to an extensive collection of outsider art. This broader term covers the work of people who are active as artists in a very personal and individual way.

Holdings:

The museum holds a library, over 15,000 titles, specialized in psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalyse, and outsider art; Photographs 19th & 20th century. Outsider art: 20th & 21 century.

Subject Strengths:

History of Hospitals; History of Medicine; History of Neurology; History of Nursing; History of Psychiatry; History of Public Health; History of Radiology

Last Updated:

07 Apr 2010