Using Archiatric Images to Explore the Experience of Psychological Disorders

[sue_frantz]

Federico Babina is a graphic designer and architect. He has created a series of 16 images, collectively called Archiatric, that are a depiction of different psychological disorders. Visit Babina’s Archiatric page and click through each image. [Shout out to Lisa Thompson Potgieter for sharing these prints on the AP Psych Teachers Facebook page!]

After covering disorders, show students this compilation of all 16 images (you can buy the print) and give students an alphabetized list of the disorders depicted.

Alzheimer’s

Anxiety

Autism

Bipolar Disorder

Dementia

Depression

Dissociative Disorders

Dyslexia

Eating Disorder

Gender Disorder

Insomnia

Narcolepsy

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Paranoia

Phobias

Schizophrenia

Ask students to work in pairs or small groups to match each disorder to Babina’s depiction and provide a short justification for why they matched each disorder with that particular image. Once group discussion abates, starting with the top left corner, ask student groups to volunteer their guesses and why. Then reveal the disorder Babina matched with that image.

The danger in using images like these to depict complex experiences is that they, by their very nature, oversimplify the experience. For example, the image used to depict obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) captures the need for order sometimes seen in OCD, but it doesn’t capture other common symptoms such as cleaning, checking, and counting.

As you identify the disorder that matches the image, ask students how the images depict the disorder. And, more importantly, ask students what symptoms of the disorder are NOT depicted in the image.

[Thank you to Susan Nolan, special consultant on this post!]