Blog # 11, July 2012
People responded to the Port Stanley murals with a flood of nostalgia … for dancing to Big Bands on a summer night, for great ships on the Great Lakes, for freshwater fish by the shore and for the gentle life in smaller places back in the day.

And, at around the same time I picked up a new book that piqued my interest from many angles. In his introduction to The Age of Insight, Eric Kandel quotes his countryman Sigmund Freud, “nostalgia reflects strange and secret yearnings…for a life of quite another kind: wishes from late childhood never to be fulfilled and not adapted to reality.”   Anyone who watches Charlie Rose and loves his monthly Brain Series as I do will recognize psychiatrist and author Kandel who co-hosts the series.  Winner of a Nobel Prize in 2000 for his brilliant work on memory storage in the brain, he has an incredible knack for rendering complex concepts accessible - and  the world’s greatest laugh, erupting from somewhere behind his red bowtie. Although he was taken from his native city when he was a child, his soul remains connected to the culture and intellectual life in fin- de-siècle Vienna.  “My heart beats in ¾ time,” he says as he describes the rich and rewarding life and times he was forced to leave behind.




In Vienna in 1900, a group of leaders in science, medicine and art revolutionized the thinking of the time about the human mind and how it relates to art. Explorations were going on at the Vienna Medical School to discover the connection between art and science. Scientists and artists began to question together what we as viewers bring to a work of art, how we respond to it and what’s involved in creating a work of art.   The people involved in the dialogue included, as well as Freud, novelist Arthur Schnitzler and artists Gustav Klimt and Oscar Kokoschka. 




           Klimt's Anita Block-Bauer


One hundred years later, some enlightened medical schools are realizing the importance of including and integrating various art forms in the preparation of their students, broadening their training and deepening their capacity for empathy. Many of you are using art in your practice to help people heal and to explore, define and make sense of their lives. Although Eric Kandel may be leading the pack, many people out there are making the world of therapy a better place with art forms as the medium.


The Age of Insight reinvigorates the intellectual enquiry that began in Vienna in 1900 and provides a link between neuroscience and the humanities; a foundation for future work on their connection and relationship to each other. There’s often a need to explain, justify, and clarify why  creative activities are valuable,  usually coming from someone with a scientific (financial) agenda and probably part of a competition for $$$.  Being able to articulate the value of art, whether it’s reading or writing, dance, music, or visual art of any sort is an important part of keeping the ball rolling…this book will help to justify the value of your work, enhance your confidence and lift your spirits.    

And it’s just a few days until the start of the summer Olympic games; Priscila Uppal is on her way to cover it with poems.  We’ll be hearing from her soon.