Mental Illness Patients

Further to a previous entry on the portrait of a mother with three mentally ill children, I am now posting the full story. For a day, a fellow photographer and I had the chance to accompany two nurses on their day trip to a few villages surrounding Siem Reap. The two nurses are part of an outpatient unit for mentally ill patients at the local hospital in Siem Reap. The unit is run by Dr. Lonh Borin.

The first set of images show the three siblings (two brothers and one sister) who suffer from various mental illnesses in various stages of seriousness. The youngest has regular violent outbreaks so that he remains chained to his hut most of the day.











At our next stop we talked to a 45-year-old mother who suffered from mental illness but now appears cured. She runs her own business nowadays, selling food to tourists visiting the temples while she also looks after her grandchildren. She talked very openly about her previous mental disorder.





The last set of images show two patients with depressive disorders.