NeuroArts Productions creates multidisciplinary arts events to advance mental health education, raise critical questions surrounding today’s mental health treatment system, and fight for a world where precision mental health is a reality.

Today, we have a “trial-and-error” treatment system for mental health, in which patients are instructed to try medications, therapies, and treatments over and over until they may finally find the right fit.  Oftentimes, they never find the right fit.  The system is not conducive to personalized treatment – it does not take into account the patient’s unique neurobiology, genetics, life experiences, socioeconomic background, and countless factors that affect a patient’s starting place when seeking treatment.  

Many individuals face barriers to mental health treatment access based on the stigma that mental illness is “all in your head.”  Individuals seeking support often need to prove the validity of their illness; this creates barriers to access and advancement of the precision mental health model, which aims to move from a one-size-fits-all, trial-and-error treatment system to a custom-tailored approach to mental health care.  We believe that challenging mental health stigma through public communication of neuroscience has significant implications for supporting person-centered precision psychiatric care, increased access to mental health support, and suicide prevention. 

My incredible friend, Luke Balstad, was a community-builder, a brilliant student at Harvard University, and a fierce advocate for mental health and precision psychiatry.  We lost him to a broken mental health system, and we are committed to carrying his advocacy forward through the medium that has been proven to facilitate tangible action and emotional resonance: the arts. 

- Sasha Gusikhin, Executive Artistic Director