Poetry as a Medium: Female Emotional Anxiety, Psychological Culture, and Visual Communication—Implications for Mental Health and Schizophrenia
Jie Zhang, Jingming ZhangAbstract
Objective
This study addresses the neglect of murals in psychological research. It reframes them as psychological documents encoding female emotional anxiety, separation distress, and grief. The objective is a psychiatric framework for understanding how ancient visual culture managed negative emotional states—anxiety, depressive affect, and existential fear—offering insights into culturally-embedded emotion regulation relevant to mental health.
Subjects and Methods
The study employs multi-layered analysis of pictorial details, funerary context, and intertextual dialogue with poetry. Psychiatric frameworks—separation anxiety, grief processing, and emotion regulation—guide examination of visual representation as symbolic coping for attachment-related distress. Attachment theory illuminates how murals encode strategies for managing separation and loss, paralleling grief counseling and anxiety treatment.
Results
These murals encode female anxiety and grief through visual motifs. Psychiatric analysis reveals culturally-sanctioned expressions of separation distress—addressing attachment disruption, existential uncertainty, and emotional dysregulation. Visual symbols function as cognitive reappraisal, transforming grief into meaningful narrative. Comparing female figures reveals shared emotional processing patterns across cultures, consistent with contemporary grief research.
Conclusions
Murals functioned as culturally-embedded emotion regulation systems—addressing anxiety, depressive symptoms, and grief through symbolic expression. Their encoding of separation distress parallels contemporary poetry therapy and expressive arts interventions. These findings suggest culturally resonant visual practices can reduce negative affect and promote well-being. Future research should examine therapeutic efficacy of culturally-adapted visual interventions for mood and anxiety disorders.
Corresponding Author
Jingming Zhang, North University of China, Taiyuan, Shanxi, 030051, China.