Institutional Imprisonment Part V

I mentioned earlier about how people can and do use art forms to navigate the construction of an ethical self.

I wrote in the previous edition of this series: The ethical self emerges only when these realities are consciously negotiated and mediated through complex systems—social, cultural, symbolic, and institutional—and through practices such as art and acting, which allow humans to experience, interpret, and integrate diverse perspectives safely without claiming total responsibility. Art, in particular, functions as a structured laboratory for self-construction and ethical engagement, modeling how humans can hold fragility, multiplicity, and moral complexity without collapse.

I also wrote: The theory positions art and acting as practical, structural scaffolds for negotiating multiplicity and fragility, thereby directly facilitating ethical self-construction.

But not everyone is an artist or actor, right? So is the theory or research defending art or is it providing further insight in to the human condition?

This is where the use of art as medicine is transformative. A lot of people call these types of practices everything from pseudoscience to just plain ineffective or they use more harsh words to describe the same sentiment. What is therapy? What is psychiatry? What’s the point?

I even know people who say they do more harm than good or they go back and forth about their opinion regarding its legitimacy.

In part five I want to discuss the idea of mediation - not medication - which applies in every arena as I previously covered:

Purpose & Human Benefit of The Theory

• Psychology and psychotherapy: Offers a structural understanding of identity formation, trauma, and moral conflict, suggesting therapeutic strategies for navigating conflicting self-realities safely.

• Medicine and healthcare: Provides insight into how patients cope with multiple dimensions of suffering and responsibility, informing holistic care models that respect psychological and ethical load.

• Education: Guides teaching methods and curricula that cultivate ethical awareness and selfhood by engaging multiple perspectives and experiential learning (e.g., role-play, creative practice).

• Cultural work and the arts: Offers a rigorous theoretical basis for using art, theatre, and storytelling to train empathy, ethical reasoning, and self-understanding.

• Social policy and organizational design: Explains how systems can be structured to distribute responsibility and meaning, reducing moral overload and improving human resilience.

It’s not that this kind of work isn’t already being done and I would strongly refrain from suggesting that this is about legitimizing the theory. The theory is legitimate. And it’s not saying we aren’t doing well enough. We know our criticisms. What my theory is saying is we need to revisit ethical frameworks. Maybe organizations that typically assume or undervalue certain types of labour need to value other types of labour: like arts. That doesn't mean only artists can redesign things. It means we need humans for alternative perspectives. Sounds so obvious, but there's a great truth there. What prevents us from doing this? Operational costs? Maybe, but maybe it’s about priorities. Maybe it is about navigating new terrain.

Maybe we don’t talk about it as efficiency but evolution. And the immediate response says: who says we aren’t evolving? Well, the purpose of my theory - the work I have done - is to expand knowledge. Taking it seriously is not an obligation. Discrediting it is well within everyone’s right. After all, this isn’t an actual biological medicine that provides a specific cure.

But then let me ask you: if pure science was enough then why do artists attack scientists and vice versa? What does any mode of inquiry suggest about who we are?

Austerity measures are introduced as safety for government spending. People complain. What if this type of knowledge is about knowing how to turn debt into increased productivity, but we don’t just change the language we change the meaning. Profit, productivity, innovation, efficiency: they are all very well known, but what are we aiming to do here? If we rely on certain industries to propel us forward or generate economic activity then what about the fact that we can apply that same type of innovation for the people doing the innovation. Or put another way: How do we create systems that can hold competing realities such as financial responsibility, human needs, innovation, and long-term sustainability without reducing one reality to the other?

For example: Debt is not only a financial problem - it is a relational problem. Austerity often treats debt as a number that must be reduced. But my theory would ask: Who produced the conditions that created debt? Who benefits from borrowing and investment? Who bears the consequences of repayment? What forms of knowledge or innovation have been excluded? Because debt exists within the relationships between governments, citizens, businesses, investors and future generations. That is the real debt.

It’s not that these questions haven’t been asked. My theory is talking about integration. And I am the first one to say prioritization is more important than anything else - but prioritization is about opinions and opinions are shaped by multiple factors. If I make a judgment about one person’s prioritization then they will do the same to me.

That’s the mess we often end up in.

Because we know these systems are already interdependent, but as I mentioned before, we have not developed enough capacity to inhabit their multiplicity without reducing one to another. We know multiple lenses exist but we attempt to manage lenses often with existing social structures and mechanisms, rather than genuinely refining them.

What can we gain from introducing the kind of integration I'm talking about in existing work? Because we already know it exists. But maybe we assume it's an added layer of time and money so therefore we don't need to hack away at it. I'm saying we need to.

As those who have read this journal already know: I suffer from Bipolar Disorder I.

Managing this type of illness has a financial aspect, a social aspect, a medical aspect, and many more: political, interpersonal, economic - the list goes on. As the patient, I have gone through many systems and really had a first-hand experience of how human society is designed to deal with this kind of dysfunction: my immediate social, financial, geographical circumstances combined with medical intervention, state facilities, and after-care. Then comes my need to adjust or accept new methods of working: suddenly my phone became less of a camera or calling device and more like a literal life-line. Technologies I ignored before now help me do work that my illness prevents me from doing.

I didn’t trust AI before.

I didn’t think as someone who had to go through years of study without any type of assistance that I would need to rely on something else to think for me. And this has become a real concern for current students. But then I realized I’m not using AI to do my thinking. I’m using it because it helps me store information or process information that I did before when I had complete cognitive capacity. Now, at times, my brain shuts down. So I try to articulate an idea or return to a thought but I can’t because I’m suddenly depressed or manic. This is where AI prevents a chemical imbalance in my brain from destroying my thought process. It holds my train of thought when I can’t.

What is wrong with that? Nothing.

Apple releases a new iPhone every day it feels like now.

What’s wrong with that? Nothing.

Why do we have an issue when artists such as myself propose new methods of integrating social systems or for understanding our core dilemmas as human beings?

Because you cannot tie an immediate result to it.

There is no immediate result. But that does not diminish its value. AI became efficient and applicable over time - I only looked to it after becoming or being diagnosed as mentally ill. People had phones before the iPhone. Now people want it over and over again, bigger, better, faster - more advanced each time. If all of this exists - and yes my being mentally ill contributes to my understanding of this largely because the vulnerability tests our existing systems - then what is stopping us from looking at the core of what makes us human in the same way? We’ve already done it. We already do it. Let’s do it again. Let's keep doing it.

Unless we’re all just waiting for the robots to take over. But even then, we’re probably going to have to figure out how to integrate their perspective.

More in Part VI.