At the heart of this issue is a special feature on Whittingham Lives, a two year arts and heritage project that honours the histories of those who lived at the Whittingham Asylum in Preston.
If art can open our minds, then so too – through experiences of wonder, magic and intensity – can psychosis. James Walker’s account, of the healing properties of psychosis, resonates both with William Park’s notion of a personal latticework of comfort (article forthcoming in Asylum 26.4), and with Rust Cohle’s piece on his own psychedelic healing process.
We have moved on since the closure of Whittingham Asylum, but a number of pieces in this issue raise questions about how far: James Walker’s account of a more recent Asylum stay, for instance, and the Scornful Comedians’ satirical take upon Recovery.
Henry Bladon takes psychiatry to task for the four mistakes it keeps repeating; and Keir Harding shares what he has learned over years of trying to support people who are suicidal. Curiosity, he argues, allows us to expose strengths that are difficult to articulate.
There is much, in this issue, to spark such curiosity, including poems by Mark Schwalbe and Eala Yaldnif, a meditation on the language of emotion, by Alastair Kemp, and the account of the life of a character with a ‘heavy name for a thin body’, by William Park. We include too obituaries of two ‘touchstone’ figures – Dorothy Rowe and Jean Vanier – both of whom died this year.
Asylum has been out and about over the summer.
Contents
- Editorial
- Letter Andrew Roberts
- Wonder, Intensity, Magic James Walker ***SAMPLE ARTICLE***
- Serenity in the Asylum James Walker
- Recovery is Good for Our Souls @disassociated16101960 and #aspiringCEO
- Letter Margaret Turner
- My Psychedelic Healing Experience Rust Cohle ***SAMPLE ARTICLE***
- If you were going to kill yourself, you’d have done it by now Keir Harding
- Psychiatry and the Illusion of Progress Henry Bladon
- Keep up the Fight Alastair Kemp
- Obituary: Dorothy Rowe 1930–2019
- Remembering Dorothy Rowe Phil Hutchinson
- Obituary: Jean Vanier 1928–2019
- Poems Eala Yaldnif
- The Inconvenience and Messiness of Acne Lotions William Park
- Special Feature: Whittingham Lives
- Introduction to Whittingham Lives Jacquie Crosby & Mick McKeown ***SAMPLE ARTICLE***
- Building the Asylum Bernard Melling
- Getting to a Place of Refuge Chantal Oakes
- Art as a Voice for Change Sue Flowers
- Poems from Whittingham Lives
- Sample articles
- Wonder, Intensity, Magic James Walker
- My Psychedelic Healing Experience Rust Cohle
- Introduction to Whittingham Lives Jacquie Crosby & Mick McKeown
Asylum 26(2) electronic