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Family Album and Other
Photo-Biographical Collections
Photos Narrating Clients' Personal History
Family
a nd
other "photo-biographical" images, whether formally kept
in albums or more loosely gathered into collections on refrigerator
doors, walls, desktops, digital files, and so forth, have
a value far greater taken as a whole than just the one-by-one
sum of the individual images that comprise them.
Family
albums and similar collections document a perso n's
life in the context of the family unit it is part of, regardless
of whether that family is defined by birth or choice. Albums
offer proof of existence over time and often many generations,
documenting permanence and change, continuity, roots, traditions,
values, and degrees of freedom for the individual within
it all.
They
mark those special moments, places, people (and pets!)
which
have mattered most to the life of the family it represents
-- or, rather, to the life of the person who created
that
album (their way). And its pages present not only
individuals by themselves, but also within numerous larger
contexts showing who they are collectively (within that
family's relationship-matrix) even when seemingly alone.
Shari ng
stories triggered by album-memories allows younger family
members to learn where they came from (culturally and historically,
as well as literally), and permits older ones to reconnect
with past memories that both define the family and signal
its future path.
A
person's family album is not just a collection of what
has
mattered to them, but also provides tangible proof that
there a re
other people to whom they have mattered, too. The
pages also incidentally point out the album-maker's natural
support group, people who love them even when they might
not be liking them very much at that particular point in
time. Albums are usually constructed to show families at
their best, with the accompanying silent subtext that "things
are always this way" (though real family relationships
are rarely so ideal).
Photo-albums
have been described as the "attic" of people's hearts,
and their family photos are often the thing mentioned as
most
missed by those who have lost their possessions to fire.
Thus, even though family albums are not artifacts of objectivity,
and the story constructed inside their pages will always
be a selectively-told one, they are nevertheless commonly
viewed as true recordings of a family's collective identity,
as well as talismans holding and protecting it from future
harm from fading memories.
In
many ways, a family's album is their (metaphoric)
home -- and their foundation for identity as well.
How This Technique Works
Although
photo albums and other similar collections of "family history"
 snapshots
are indeed comprised of single photos made by people,
and of people (and sometimes also self-portraits too),
when these are put into orderly sequence that collectively
forms a "bigger picture" such as an album, they all take
on a secondary life whose scope reaches far beyond that
of any particular single kind of photograph covered by
any
of the other four PhotoTherapy techniques.
For
this reason, working with family and other autobiographical
photographs must be treated as a separate technique for
the purposes of PhotoTherapy work, even though any single
image can of course also be worked with as its own particular
kind, using any of the other four techniques.
Looking
through family photos, and sharing stories about what they
show, happens often when people get together socially, and
this natural behavior can also be spontaneously therapeutic
on its own. Therefore, when asked to do much the same kind
of family-photo reviewing and discussing within the more
formal context of a counseling session, clients usually
find that this kind of album-based therapeutic inquiry feels
more comfortable and familiarly "normal" than directly verbal
questioning.
As
the
generalized, idealized version of the family history presented
in the family album is rarely the same as the individualized
memories kept inside each client's own mind, it can be very
useful to ask them to go back and reconstruct the album
their own way and to "re-member" its parts according
to their version of what took place over the years.
This
can provide additional perspectives on family relationships
according to the client's own (and usually different) version
of reality. Helping people see themselves inside their own
personal history contexts often helps them better understand
their current situations and feelings (and perhaps recognize
where some of their expectations and judgments are coming
from). Therefore asking questions based on the photographic
contents of clients' albums will shed light on their entire
personal map of reality and the relationships that populate
it, since the photos represent nonverbal emotional maps
of the actual spontaneous family dynamics themselves, caught
"live, in action".
Albums
can reveal physical similarities and other thematic patterns
repeating across the pages. They often also contain "forgotten"
people, secrets, myths, closets, and juicy anecdotes, along
with occasional mis-truths -- and therefore what has been
omitted (or silenced) on their pages is sometimes more therapeutically
significant than what actually appears there.
Entire
multi-generational family systems are waiting inside albums
to be recognized for the useful visual clues they provide,
such as evidence of power alignments and tr iangulations,
fusion and differentiation, and even "unfinished business"
and family "scripts" that got frozen in a snap-second of
someone's life. Family network maps lie embedded there for
those who know how to recognize their photographically-distilled
forms. Photo-illustrated personal narratives and personally-symbolic
messages await therapists trained to note these extra layers
of clients' lives (and minds).
Albums
are proof of people's very existence; they will easily outlive
the human lives inside the pages, and thus people's albums
tell the world that this person lived, and their life had
value. In this way, using such photos to assist the process
of life review and reminiscence can help people re-focus
their perspective off the immediate moment of crisis and
instead observe the rhythms of the larger natural flow of
life. Albums allow people to review their experiences and
accomplishments, their connections and relationships with
others, and to find meaning in their life.
Thus,
while therapeutically processing what appears in clients'
photo-biographical collections, the investigative questions
in this technique will be based more on the overall contents
of the album, rather than on any one single photograph.
For
example*, clients might be asked to look through all their
album photos and explore the implications of what is evident
(or not) about their own family and its history, what is
secret or rarely discussed, which photos surprise them the
most by being there, which are most or least "true", which
ones they would change or remove if they could (or add
as
new pictures to help tell the family story better or more
correctly), how they can tell which snapshot was taken
by
whom, why they think certain family members are habitually
photographed next to (or avoiding) particular other people,
who is usually the center of attention (or taking most
of
the photographs) and why, and so forth.
Additionally,
family photos can be probed for their embedded emotional
messages (such as the degree
of touching or hugging displayed), visible nonverbal family
"scripts" or prohibitions, expectations about personal appearance
or gender-roles, messages about unresolved issues, irregularities
in the natural rhythm of photo-keeping which might indicate
trouble-spots in the flow of otherwise normal times or people
who suddenly "go missing" from its pages, along with many
other similar questions exploring deeper into facial expression,
body language, and other related visual clues expressing
that family's non-verbalized emotional map...
* These questions are
samples given only to illustrate the kinds that therapists
might ask clients when using this technique. Feel free
to try them out yourself with your own personal photos,
but unless you are professionally trained in counseling,
please do not use them with other people, as the results
could be harmful.
• • •
As
with the other
four PhotoTherapy techniques, self-portraits can be
worked with either on their own or in combination with
other kinds of client photographs, as well as in combination
with expressive arts media and other appropriated imagery
for additional therapeutic enhancement.
See examples,
more photos illustrating this
technique,
and personal anecdotes sent
in by visitors to this site.
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An Example
(Taken from PhotoTherapy
Techniques -- Exploring the Secrets of Personal Snapshots
and Family Albums)
One
man's experience in examining dozens of childhood pictures
from his family album demonstrated how such double binds
and mixed messages also are frequently communicated and
documented photographically. Most of the photos in his
family's
album were of him alone. He had been born five years after
his sister died at birth; he was his parents' "only" child
and was raised as a precious treasure representing everything
a child could be to them.
"I
became their daughter as well as their son, which complicated
the messages and expectations I kept getting," he said,
"You can see this in the way that I was always posed year
after year as being literally the object of their attention."
He explained that his mother very formally took a picture
of him every year on his birthday for eighteen years, and
so this regular documentation of him showed not only his
personal history, but as his many outfits changed from sailor
suit to cowboy to more "proper" suits of various styles,
the images also began to retrospectively serve as a socio-cultural
visual history of his lifetime.
 He
remarked that one particular image stood out as being especially
significant for him. It was of him with his mother, both
of them smiling, but she was tightly forcing his hands under,
which he commented must have been very uncomfortable for
him.
He
said the photo is symbolic of how he was treated and was
expected to respond to such expectations emotionally, and
that it illustrates how his mother often subtly tried to
block his becoming independent both physically as in the
picture as well as emotionally. "My parents had seemed
to love me and give me everything, so why was I so angry?
Look
at this photo! My mother's love was very controlling and
ultimately a very crippling love. I see this in the way
she is bending my hands as I sat on her lap. I was smiling
and she was smiling, but I was being controlled and she
was really doing this so we would make a good impression
on others. She was invading and manipulating my self and
space. I had... displaced anger toward her for this action
and indirectly to my father for not stopping her manipulation."
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More Photos
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Personal Anecdotes*
* If you want to submit your own personal
anecdote to this page, send it to the PhotoTherapy
Centre for consideration.
Back
to the other four techniques
PhotoTherapy
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