The social invisibility of mental health: understanding social exclusion through place & space

Background

The European target that the 5% of the healthcare service budget goes to mental health might not be enough to cover the inequity between health and mental health provision. The project is a multi-disciplinary, research-through-arts project, involving a Faculty of the Built Environment, a Division of Psychiatry and a School of Art. The project aims to identify elements demonstrating inequality demonstrated from place and space related to the facility provision.

Methods

The research compares mental vs healthcare facilities inside a catchment area, with photographs of the facades of the buildings and mapping their proximity to public transportation. It juxtaposes mental/healthcare facilities for access, condition and status compared to their surroundings.

Results

A book and an exhibition close to Bentham’s auto-icon, the designer of Panopticon custodial facility, demonstrated inverse links between his Panopticon, and the invisibility that NIMBYism produces towards the mentally ill that resulted in their exclusion, within deprived, vandalized, under-funded, isolated from public transport facilities “in the community”.

Conclusions

The project identified factors that contribute to the isolation of mental health facilities in terms of both space and place, and set the basis for further research in future projects. It demonstrated visually the under-budgeting of mental health facilities and their stigmatization as expressed by the centrality of locations and their overall projected image. This outlined the path for integrated, transdisciplinary research in the future involving architecture, arts and psychiatry. The project increased the awareness of the general public on social injustice, stigma and mental health. It combats NIMBYism and supports the fairer allocation of resources and placement of health facilities, aiming to put pressure to stakeholders involved in the NHS decision. Actions have been taken by the Trust involved to change.

Key messages

Inequalities between building (facades and location) contribute to mental illness stigma: this is what the general public views daily. Architecture can be a powerful medium to support inclusion.