I was inspired to pursue my masters in Art Therapy and Counseling after witnessing the great need for mental health practitioners to go into the field during the pandemic. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to show up for others who were under-resourced or facing extreme isolation in unprecedented times. Since I am interested in creative arts therapies, as I am a practicing artist myself, I tried to think of creative ways to combat the many obstacles we face to leading healthy lives in our society. I found ways to use my artistic practice to uplift and share the stories of others through portraiture. I did this because so many of us were experiencing collective grief and had limited access to the community and care we need to process things, and in doing so- found I was helped in my own grieving process. I began a practice of creating memorial portraits during those early days in the pandemic, and in preparation for graduate school- compiled them into a portfolio. This practice of mine has expanded greatly in the recent years. Seeing the impact that the memorializing of people's loved ones had on them, and digging into what it was providing inspired me to do more. I now make it a part of my routine to give small gifts to friends struggling, and organize food and clothing drives for houseless individuals during the winter months to name a couple. I see all of these small actions as being integral to my development as a future clinician, as truly caring about clients I will serve means working to make a better world for us all to exist in. I do still believe, in my core, that we need to prioritize mental health care just as much as physical health care in this country. I also have come to realize that we cannot expect others to have ideal mental health without ideal conditions. I believe a part of any therapist's repertoire should be pro-bono, volunteer work to improve the conditions we see around us. I feel this way because I am in a position of privilege that allows me the free time to invest in my goals around social justice and equality. I find that striving to live a life that embodies our ethics allows us to show up for ourselves in the way we deserve- and I hope to use these lessons in my future career as an Art Therapist.

Psychiatry in its theory, practice and institutions has widely influenced many accepted truths about human behavior. However- this school of thought may be more harmful than not. The wide net that has been cast in Western ideological thinking around psychiatry, is not to be conflated with psychology, which can be defined as the medical practice of analyzing, diagnosis and treating mental disorders for this paper, has been indoctrinated into almost every aspect of our society and culture in the United States and Western schools of thought. We largely accept ideologies that center an emphasis on individualism rather than collectivism, which can be related to a Western/Eastern binary in philosophy. We are also so immersed in a capital-based identity culture, that it is hard to untangle the ways professionalism is wrapped up in the pathologization of certain disorders. These disorders largely have to do with productivity and citizenship, than anything else. The birth of pathologization/history of categorizing mental disorders Many ideologies surrounding the pathologization of mental health that are prevalent in our cultural consciousness today are accepted as innate truths. It becomes difficult to challenge oppressive sentiments that are born of a design to uphold centuries-old power structures. It is true that the human mind naturally is drawn to patterns, and so it follows that the classification of human behavior and mental health would become developed in a scientific-oriented world. This is a process that has in many ways aided society. Without the advancements that we have made in medicine, biology, epidemiology, psychiatry, psychology, and so on- we would still be in the trenches of humanity, unable to rise to our fullest potential. However, it is important to recall that biases exist in our hierarchical society, and certain hegemonies have prioritized and uplifted theories with roots in power structures that are still upheld today. The study of the human mind began to splinter off of major rule by the Christian church that diseases of the psyche were indicative of spiritual failure or possession in the 1700s (Jung, Psychology and Religion: West) and in the latter half of the century, bleeding into the 1800s- there emerged many areas of scientific inquiry about the nature of human suffering. Psychology in the broadest sense was an amazing advancement in human understanding of itself- in that it grew in parallel to the incredible insight gained from studying the functions of the body. Today, it is largely believed that we still have only begun scraping the surface of discoveries around the functions of our brain, and its relations to our functionality. The context here is of utmost importance. Many cultures, for example, do not expect that one will move out of the family home. These are Western concepts and ideas that, while culturally relevant to us, are not universal to the human experience. Jung also states, on the matter of those who experience decreased mental functionality and their being studied, that neuroses, and still does so in academic parlance. In practice, however, a gulf has opened up in the last few decades between the trained neurologist and the psychotherapist, especially after the first research in hypnotism. This rift was unavoidable, because neurology, strictly speaking, is the science of organic nervous diseases, whereas psychogenic neuroses are not organic diseases in the usual sense of the term. Nor do they fall within the realm of psychiatry, whose particular field of study is psychoses, or mental diseases, (196). These distinctions and rifts had historical significance at the birth of these movements in theory and can be reflected in the current state of accepted truths and debates surrounding the human mind, or rather, self. Finally, we must note that these categorizations must serve a purpose- but question to whom the purpose is served. There are massive crimes against humanity that coexisted with the spread and prevalence of these many theories, and as human behavior and psychological neurosis were named and put into text- so were eugenics. Who is granted a pass in moral inventory, and holds sanctity to ascribe symptoms to those who place themselves in their care, and how do we distinguish between good care and over-diagnosis of marginalized peoples? To note that these disturbances existed in scientific study but stop there, and not delve into how the root of most psychiatric services is still Darwinist, Freudian, dogmatic and ill-suited to improve the lives of patients is not only naive but can potentially be leading us into a dark future (Madsen, Chapter 8). This leads us to our next section, an exploration of the practice of Psychiatry under capitalism. Industrialism and increased institutionalism Within our lifetimes, we may have taken note that change is not linear. We can see this in the political waves, so to speak, that have left us questioning if we have learned from history over the last half-century. Just when it seems we are on the cusp of social equality for all, conservative politicians roll back rights on reproductive freedom, for example. There were many schisms in the various fields that existed, and even a promising movement referred to as the “moral treatment” coined by French therapeutist Philippe Pinel (Cautin, 4). It can become problematic to look back in time and assign a moral ambiguity to those who lived before us. Eugenics, for example, has not been erased by modernity. As the 18th century marched on, and the American Psychotherapy Movement (1880-1920) (Cautin, A Century of Psychotherapy) progressed, many advancements in the ethical treatment of the mentally ill were regressed. Other movements in the West that took precedence over the scientific process included American Spiritualism, shifting public consciousness to that of the paranormal, the Mind-cure movement (8), pushing practices such as hypnosis, and the Emmanual movement (9/10), which insisted the marriage of the Roman Catholic Church and psychoanalysis rather than scientific methods of study. This has been common in Western psychiatric practices, where treatment becomes more of a spectacle and vehicle to push a sect of religious values that are not suited for all recipients. Post-slavery society pushes onwards under the lease of these tainted methodologies, and cannot be separated from the violence that persists in the Jim Crow era, post WWII, and even post 9-11. A fine analogy to draw would be that of the categorization of sexual identity, and such as a mental disorder (Foucault). We have all been taught evolutionary theory through the lens of Darwinism, but seldom draw connections in our academic pursuits between Darwin’s scientific theories in evolution and practices in Eugenics, “which focuses on extending Dawrin’s theories of plant and animal evolution to the social lives of human beings, especially regarding societal processes'', (Baninister, 2010, Yakushko, 2019). Modern day breakaways from these harmful schools of thought In our world today we have a unique opportunity to shift the dialogue surrounding mental health care in the US and other states in the global west, with so much attention being shone on this field post-pandemic. Today, we are seeing an increased awareness of some of the more sordid history of psychiatric bodies of work- and splintering off of these, new forms of hope and some resurfacing of past methodologies. There are binaries ready to be broken, perhaps the most obvious being sane/ill, but too the blending of Eastern/Western societal norms. For example, in many Western cultures as previously discussed, the rise of individualism and self-actualization has led to stigmatization of interdependence, which is largely celebrated and upheld in contrast in Eastern societies. So many of our diagnostic tools are being brought into question, such as the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), reevaluated and published by the APA every several years. Noise has been made in recent decades regarding the revaluation of schizoaffective, borderline and bipolar disorders, mood disorders and gender variants- which until recently were poised as disorders as well. The questioning is largely centered around what influences have led to our marking these categories as outside of the normative, as outside of functioning, or as outside of sane- and societal understandings of gender oppression, class, and radicalization of mental health are largely to blame. The categories also stem from our nationalist idea around ‘productivity’, which can be seen rooted in the school to prison pipeline. Children who fail to abide by school structures, behaviorally or otherwise, are far more likely to end up within the prison system- and, hand in hand, experience mental trauma and distress. Conclusion Just as we no longer employ certain methods of cure, such as intensive shock therapy meant to subdue chronic patients filling mental wards, we must analyze the patriarchal standards that still insidiously hide in plain sight within our mental health care structures today. By replacing policing of lives that do not fit neatly into status quo and hegemonic categories with compassionate, trauma-informed care, social services and community interventionists rather than armed police, we can build a more sustainable world that is for all of us. We must challenge our assumptions around what it means to live a fulfilling and meaningful life, and what a universally autonomous healthcare system would look like outside of an ableist model. Should I be awarded this opportunity, I would continue to make it my mission to advance the field past the origins discussed above and create a more compassionate, just approach to mental health care.