This event celebrates the launch of our exhibition, Moonstruck: 500 years of mental health.

The event will begin in our foyer with a drinks reception. You will then have the opportunity to hear two speakers, Jo McFarlane and Dr Allan Beveridge. Jo will discuss her lived experiences of mental health while Allan will uncover the use of illustrations of nineteenth-century asylum patients in their diagnosis. The drinks reception will then continue with tours of our new exhibition.

About the exhibition:

The illustrations, books and objects displayed in this exhibition show the changing understanding of mental health over the last 500 years.

This is not simply a history of psychiatry, although that is an important part of this story. It also includes mental health experiences which date from long before the profession of psychiatry existed and uncovers the self-help remedies of those who never came into contact with medical professionals.

Additionally it considers the role of physicians, including Fellows and Members of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, in the support for and treatment of these conditions.

This exhibition encourages us to examine our own ideas around mental health and aims to show how, even now, many older stereotypes and ideas about these conditions remain unchanged.