Migraine Art: The Migraine Experience from Within

(Hardback)

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Description

In their book "Migraine Art", authors Klaus Podoll and Derek Robinson provide descriptions of types of migraine visual phenomena, along with art images created by migraine sufferers that detail their visual experiences. The migraine art concept was developed as the rationale for a number of public competitions in the 1980s which encouraged artists, both amateur and professional, to illustrate the pain, the visual disturbances, and the effect migraines had on their lives.The book describes a comprehensive view of the migraine experience and covers such topics as migraine signs, symptoms, triggers, and treatments, as well as types of visual hallucinations and somatic sensations and experiences. Throughout the book are pieces of art created by the migraine sufferers themselves that exemplify each category of visual disturbance. A description of the migraine visual experiences of famous historical figures, such as Blaise Pascal and Lewis Carroll provide a historical background on the topic. The book also includes a history of four Migraine Art competitions and information about the Migraine Art collection.

Reviews

It has taken more than a decade and a half, but Migraine Art: The Migraine Experience from Within has been well worth the wait for all of us with an interest in visual phenomena and the brain. [It] stands as the definitive work of its kindan incomparable collection of material on the visual and other phenomena of migraine, and, by implication, on the brain processes which underlie these.
Foreword by Oliver Sacks

"One of the most fascinating under-the-radar art books of recent times is North Atlantics Migraine Art, a book based on a contest held in Germany which asked people to illustrate what a migraine felt like. The results of the contest were incredible: crazy nightscapes, lightening bolts through the eyes, parts of heads missing"
RandomHouseLibrary.com

First, Migraine Art is, literally, a beautiful book, filled with both fascinating and gorgeous illustrations by migraine artistsadults and children, celebrated and obscure. Klaus Podoll and Derek Robinson provide a comprehensive overview of their subject, the symptoms and mechanisms of migraine as translated into outsider art by migraine sufferers. But they do something else too; something humane and profound: they show us in remarkable detail how people respond to pain with creativity, and tell us much, too, about the unexplored bonds between science and the humanities, between the hard facts of our bodies, and the labor of our imaginations.
Andrew Levy, author of A Brain Wider Than the Sky: A Migraine Diary

This magnum opus from Klaus Podoll and Derek Robinson is a key to migraine research that has been a long time coming. If you want to understand your own symptoms better, and those of others, there are few books that will offer more insight.
Migraine and Headache News

Author Bio

Klaus Podoll MD, born in 1958, studied medicine and psychology at the Heinrich-Heine University in D sseldorf, Germany. A neurologist and a psychiatrist, he currently works in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Aachen, Germany. His scientific work includes 2 books and over 80 medical papers with a focus on studies in migraine aura. He is also co-editor in chief of the Migraine Aura Foundation website, (www.migraine-aura.org), one of the leading Internet resources on migraines. The late Derek Robinson (1928-2001) developed the migraine art concept while employed as a career marketing executive for Beohringer Ingelheim Limited, a multinational pharmaceutical company. In 1973, he solicited graphic material for his company's advertising campaign promoting a new drug for migraine prevention. This became the catalyst for organizing a number of public competitions in the 1980s which encouraged artists, both amateur and professional, to illustrate the pain, the visual disturbances, and the effect migraine had on their lives. According to Derek Robinson, Migraine Art denotes the idea that techniques of pictorial representational art may provide an adequate and sometimes the best suited medium to express and communicate those experiences which occur as signs and symptoms of migraine or as reactions of the migraine sufferer to the said manifestations of the disease.