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Background: Stigmatization of individuals with schizophrenia remains pervasive in healthcare, affecting clinical interactions and recovery-oriented care. The LIBIAS project investigates how embodied, art-based learning can challenge stereotypes by fostering sensory, emotional, and experiential understanding. Offering congress participants a live, participatory workshop aligns with the theme of “Embodied Research - practice-based and embodied forms of knowledge.”

Goals: This session aims to:

1. provide a hands-on experience of the LIBIAS workshop “Psychoses: seeing differently, understanding differently”;
2. illustrate how engagement with artworks and lived-experience knowledge promotes perspective-taking; and
3. present a brief overview of the psychopathology-focused control workshop used in the RCT, highlighting differences in content, approach, and learning mechanisms.

Methods: Participants engage with artworks and literary pieces created by people with psychosis, guided reflective exercises, and facilitated dialogue with lived-experience contributors to evoke embodied, affective understanding. A short presentation introduces the control workshop, which focuses on symptomatology and diagnostic frameworks. Both workshops are part of the LIBIAS participant- and judge-blinded RCT (n = 90; 2×45) with 3-month follow-up, evaluated via ANCOVA using OMS-HC and IRI scales.

Results: Preliminary findings indicate that the art-based workshop significantly reduces stigmatizing attitudes and increases empathy more than the control. Participants report transformative effects of embodied, aesthetic engagement.

Conclusion: By directly experiencing the intervention, congress attendees can witness how art-based, participatory, and embodied methods foster stigma-sensitive practice and inform future mental healthcare education frameworks.