Museum therapy, a rapidly growing non-medical treatment, is gaining popularity in cities worldwide, including Paris, Brussels, Singapore, and Montreal. Programs offer over ten days of art therapy monthly, providing patients with “museum prescriptions” from doctors, making this a unique form of treatment. This innovative approach includes exposing people to beauty and culture, while creating artwork themselves to heal. Participants include people with Alzheimer’s, drug users, autistic children, and cancer patients.
The programs’ development involved collaboration among city officials, museums, doctors, and hospitals to build awareness and demand. Museums can take people away from their problems for a while as they experience culture and their own creativity. With strong evidence of its success, and with low costs, museum therapy is part of a bigger movement of “social prescribing” in 30 countries worldwide.
