78 The Economist May 21st 2022
Culture
TherapeuticartComic relief
T
he class begins with the following
assignment: draw a four-panel comic
strip about your day. In five minutes the
pupils—among them writers, artists, stay-
at-home mothers, a graduate student and a
cinema manager—produce lighthearted
yet touching sketches about play dates,
tedious chores and a quizzical chicken.
By the end of the session, however, the
drawings they submit express raw emo-
tions: regret at failing to say goodbye to a
loved one, feelings of inadequacy in moth-
erhood and memories too painful to artic-
ulate in other ways. For four years Kaye
Shaddock, an art therapist, has guided
these informal workshops in a studio in
Massachusetts or online—together with
Anna Moriarty Lev, a cartoonist whose sub-
jects have included her mother’s experi-
ence of breast cancer (see picture). Their
aim is to demonstrate how comics can
serve as a tool for reflection. “Putting
words and pictures down on paper clarifies
things that, otherwise, I’m alone with in
my head,” says one participant.Exactly when the therapeutic virtues of
comic books were recognised is unclear.
Justin Green, an American cartoonist, gave
clinicians a nudge with “Binky Brown
Meets the Holy Virgin Mary”, a bawdy auto-
biographical account of growing up tor-
tured by religious guilt and compulsive
neurosis, published in 1972. Green, who
died last month, was eventually diagnosed
with obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd).
(He is also credited with pioneering auto-
biographical comics and as an inspiration
to Art Spiegelman, creator of “Maus”.)
Anecdotally, comics have been used intreatments since the late 1980s. But in re-
cent years they have increasingly caught
the attention of doctors, therapists and
even government agencies. In 2017 the nhs
authorities in Manchester, England, fund-
ed the publishing of comic-type work-
books on panic attacks and insomnia.
America’s agency for defence-technology
innovation, darpa, has considered comic-
design software as an emotional tool for
veterans of the war in Afghanistan.
Katharine Houpt, an art therapist in
Chicago, explains that the drawing of com-
ics gives people agency in their stories. The
imagery and malleable conventions—such
as thought bubbles, perspective shifts and
the personification of inanimate con-
cepts—can help convey thorny ideas and
experiences. Getting patients to draw a dai-
ly six-panel strip, and other such exercises,
can reveal cognitive patterns and potential
triggers for distress.
Draughtsmen can dissociate them-
selves from their ailments by portraying
them as separate characters. Take insom-
nia: Ms Shaddock encouraged a child to
draw a comic about why she had trouble
sleeping. The child conceived of “Wor-
night”, a monster that filled her head with
worries at night. “It shifted the problem
away from her and put it onto something
that was external,” Ms Shaddock recounts.
Engaging with comic-book characters
can also prod patients to go easier on
themselves. John Pollard, who researchedDoctors and therapists are using comic books to spread awareness of conditions
and help patients express themselves→Alsointhissection
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