The British Journal of Psychiatry (2005) 187: A22
© 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Psychiatry in pictures
EDITED BY ALLAN BEVERIDGE
Do you have an image, preferably accompanied by 100 to 200 words of
explanatory text, that you think would be suitable for Psychiatry in Pictures?
Submissions are very welcome and should be sent direct to Dr Allan Beveridge,
Queen Margaret Hospital, Whitefield Road, Dunfermline, Fife KY12 0SU, UK.
Mark is a young White British man, known to psychiatric services since June
2000, with a history of heavy recreational drug use. In his most recent
admission, after using cocaine, Mark had become psychotic with hypomanic
features. During this period he drew a number of highly detailed and colourful
pictures eloquently conveying his distress and psychosis.
In this picture, which was his first, the eye of God is shown crying blood,
and Jesus appears with angels and masses praying. To the right are further
depictions of what he perceived as evil trying to overwhelm good. During this
period Mark was highly distressed, chaotic and confused. He described his mind
as being split in two, good and evil. He was uncertain of his personal
identity and felt as if he was from a different planet. His ‘evil
head’ is drawn in the bottom right, decapitated and on a spike.
In subsequent pictures he drew aliens in a spaceship and depictions of
deliberate self-harm and first-rank symptoms including thought broadcast and
paranoid persecutory delusions. His final picture, a very simple drawing in
black and white, was a testament to his recovery.
