Historisches Museum Basel – Barfüsserkirche
Until June 29, 2025

What do we consider “normal,” “not normal,” or “crazy”? Where is the boundary between mentally healthy and mentally ill and how has it shifted over time?

Basel’s Historical Museum is presenting the special exhibition “insanely normal,” which tells the story of psychiatry in Basel over the last 150 years and deals with questions that still concern us today.

The history of psychiatry is ambivalent: in the search for cures, many methods were tried out, including some that are incomprehensible to us today. The exhibition shows the changes in testing methods, diagnoses, and therapies. Patient stories from the Basel clinic provide an insight into everyday life at the clinic, the course of treatment, and human destinies.

Even today, mental illness is still a major challenge. Is our time making us ill? What effect does medication have? Do we need coercion? And what kind of psychiatry would we like to see? People affected and experts have their say on these and other questions in the exhibition and discuss current issues relating to psychiatry from different perspectives.

https://www.hmb.ch/en/news/exhibitions/insanely-normal/

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