Straitjackets, a box for transporting brains and a device for electroshock. Much has changed in the past 50 years, but the most important questions are still discussed: What is the psyche? When is social deviation pathological? How does life history, chemistry, genetics and environment intersect?

The psychiatry room is an experiment. We have established a hybrid between an exhibition, an open magazine and an academic room for inspiration. It is a manifold room, that has been build to be used.

The century-long history of psychiatry is present in the form of, among others, a box for brains, a restraint chair, manuals, straitjackets, a convulsion bed, psychosurgery, a device for electroshock, chlorpromazin and other medicaments and art brut, made by patients.

The psychiatry room has 5 functions

1. An open storage room where you can see and study all the objects, pictures and records from psychiatric research and treatment, that Medical Museion stores.
2. An acquisition room where we look for and collect new object from contemporary psychiatry
3. An inspiration room where ideas to new exhibitions (on other museums as well!) can take form – with the objects and pictures in the room as a starting point.
4. A meeting room where smaller groups of students, professionals, patient associations etc. can meet and discuss the past, present and future of psychiatry – with its material and visual history as a present backdrop.
5. A provocative room where we ask though thought-provoking questions to present and future psychiatry, such as if mental disorders may be caused by the microbiome in our guts?

The people behind the room are:
Professor emeritus and former director of Medical Museion Thomas Söderqvist (idea and project responsibility), senior curator Niels Christian Vilstrup-Møller (curator and project manager), conservator Nanna Gerdes (conservation work), senior curator Daniel Noesgaard (science check), assistant professor Adam Bencard (philosophical considerations), cand.mag. Peter Meedom (research) and cand.mag.stud. Astrid Mo.