The richly illustrated volume bridges the gap between the everyday life of psychiatry and art: well-known and previously unseen works from the Prinzhorn Collection of the University Hospital Heidelberg impressively demonstrate how psychiatric patients perceived their situation, their doctor, and life in the institution around 1900. These hauntingly fascinating drawings are complemented by texts, documents, and photographs that provide insight into the biographical backgrounds of the patients, as well as the diagnoses and therapies recorded at the clinics and institutions. Psychiatry meets art, medical history meets destinies: a book for anyone interested in the history of psychiatry from the perspective of the inmates of "asylums" - and at the same time a contribution to the history of Outsider Art.