The Patient Painting

This is the portrait of Mr 123, a patient that was under our care during the pandemic and lockdowns. He is known to suffer from schizophrenia and his mental health started to deteriorate during that period. He was hearing 3 voices of males, which at times were also his own voice. They were derogatory voices which mocked him. He deteriorated in his mental health as he stopped his medications. He relapsed and the risks increased. Mr 123 was treated in an inpatient ward. The lockdown stopped any opportunities for him to have outdoor therapies and normalise his life (e.g. going to gym, doing gardening, going to library etc.). He lived in his hallucinatory world and had conversations with the voices. He responded to a combination of psychiatric treatment, psychological input, occupational therapy and ward based therapies. Mr 123 started to became even better when the lockdown was over and he started to have walks and outdoor activities/ therapies. I painted this patient showing an active psychotic experience where the voices he was hearing were actively talking to him. He responded to the voices by laughing to himself and talking back to them. The background is smudged, blurred and overlaps his portrait as his hallucinatory world was taking over the reality leaving him more and more dysfunctional.