Art Does Not Replace Therapy

Stop listening to damaging pop psychology memes.

Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash

I’m sure you have seen it. It’s on Pinterest. It’s on Facebook. It’s on Reddit and Tumblr. It belongs in the deepest bowels of Internet hell.

It’s memes like this:

This is dangerous thinking on multiple levels. Mental health illness is no laughing matter, and artists are especially vulnerable to mental health issues. It is even romanticized with great artists like Van Gogh or writers like Ernest Hemingway. Instead of writing off an artist with mental health struggles as a “genius” or as a butt of some joke, we should treat it as the mental health crisis that it is.

These memes trivialize the mental health battles artists go through. They suggest that all a suffering artist needs is some paint and an idea. But even if you are happiest when creating, such as I am, you still need someone to talk to from time to time.

I distrusted therapy for years despite the fact my own father is a mental health professional. I felt therapy was for the weak-minded and that I could solve my problems by burying myself into my artwork. I was wrong.