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The Secret Lives of Personal Snapshots and Family Photographs
E very
snapshot a person takes or keeps is also a type of self-portrait,
a kind of "mirror with memory" reflecting back those moments
and people that were special enough to be frozen in time
forever. Collectively, these photos make visible the ongoing
stories of that person's life, serving as visual footprints
marking where they have been (emotionally, as well as physically)
and also perhaps signaling where they might next be heading.
Even their reactions to postcards, magazine pictures, and
snapshots taken by others can provide illuminating clues
to their own inner life and its secrets.
The
actual meaning of any photograph lies less in its visual
facts and more in what these details evoke inside the mind
(and heart) of each viewer. While looking
at a snapshot, people actually spontaneously create
the meaning that they think is coming from that photo itself,
and this may or may not be the meaning that the photographer
originally intended to convey. Thus, its meaning (and emotional
"message") is dependent upon who is doing the looking, because
people's perceptions and unique life experiences automatically
frame and define what they see as real. Therefore,
people's reactions to photographs they find to be special
can actually reveal a lot about themselves, if only
the right kinds of questions are asked.
How
Therapists Use Photos to Help People Heal
Most
people keep photographs around, without ever pausing to
really think about why. But, because personal snapshots
permanently record important daily moments (and the associated
emotions unconsciously embedded within them), they can serve
as natural bridges for accessing, exploring, and communicating
about feelings and memories (including deeply-buried or
long-forgotten ones), along with any psychotherapeutic issues
these bring to light. Counselors find that their clients'
photos frequently act as tangible symbolic self-constructs
and metaphoric transitional objects that silently offer
inner "in-sight" in ways that words alone cannot as fully
represent or deconstruct.
Und er
the guidance of a therapist trained in PhotoTherapy techniques,
clients explore what their own personally meaningful snapshots
and family albums are about emotionally, in addition
to what they are of visually. Such information is
latent in all clients' personal photos, but when it can
be used to focus and precipitate therapeutic dialogue, a
more direct and less censored connection with the unconscious
will usually result.
During
PhotoTherapy sessions, photos are not just pas sively
reflected upon in silent contemplation, but also actively
created, posed for, interacted with, listened and talked
to, reconstructed, revised to form or illustrate new narratives,
collected on assignment, re-visualized in memory or imagination,
integrated into art therapy expressions, or even set into
animated dialogue with other photos.
PhotoTherapy
-- The Bigger Picture
As
explained in the book, PhotoTherapy
Techniques -- Exploring the Secrets of Personal Snapshots
and Family Albums, PhotoTherapy is best viewed as
an interrelated system of photo-based
counseling techniques used by trained mental health
professionals as part of their therapeutic practice
while helping clients consciously probe, and subsequently
cognitively reintegrate, their photo-precipitated insights
in order to better understand and improve their life.
Therefore,
it is not the same thing as "Therapeutic
Photography" (which is sometimes also confusingly called
"Photo-Therapy", particularly in the U.K.), as those are
self-conducted activities done outside any formal counseling
context. People use Therapeutic Photography for their own
personal self-discovery or artistic statement purposes,
whereas therapists use PhotoTherapy to assist other
people (their clients) who need help with their problems.
While the results of doing photo-based self-exploration
(photography-as-therapy; i.e., photography used for
personal insight purposes, but with no therapist involved
or guiding the process) often ends up being serendipitously
"therapeutic" on its own -- especially when using the camera
as an agent of personal or social change -- this is not
the same as activating and processing such experiences while
under the guidance and care of a trained counseling professional
(photography-in-therapy; i.e., using photos and people's
interactions with them, during the therapy process,
as an integral part of it).
Since
PhotoTherapy is a collection of flexible techniques, rather
than fixed directives based upon only one specific theoretical
modality or therapeutic paradigm, it can be used by any
kind of trained counselor or therapist, regardless of their
conceptual orientation or preferred professional approach.
This is one of the many ways that PhotoTherapy is both similar
to, yet distinct from, Art Therapy
-- as well as the reason it can be used so successfully
by a variety of other mental health professionals who are
not specifically trained in Art Therapy.
Since
Photo Therapy is about photography-as-communication rather
than photography-as-art, no prior experience with cameras
or the photographic arts is required for effective therapeutic
use.
And
finally, sinc e
PhotoTherapy involves people interacting with their own
unique visual constructions of reality (using photography
more as an activating verb than as a passive/reflective
noun), these techniques can be particularly successful with
people for whom verbal communication is physically or mentally
limited, socio-culturally marginalized, or situationally-inappropriate
due to misunderstanding of nonverbal cues.
Therefore
PhotoTherapy can be especially helpful, and usually very
empowering, in applications with multicultural, disabled,
minority-gender, special-needs, and other similarly-complex
populations -- as well as beneficial in diversity training,
conflict resolution, divorce mediation, and other related
fields.
Now
that the general public is becoming increasingly comfortable
with using electronic technology and digital imagery, even
more exciting possibilities arise for using photos as counseling
tools for helping clients who have scanners or family websites,
or those able to participate in online cyber-therapy.
•
Please explore this site further to learn more about how
Photo Therapy can help people get a better picture of
their life -- one that is worth far more than the proverbial
thousand words!
• • •
You
are encouraged to get in touch with the PhotoTherapy
Centre with your questions or requests for more information
or training -- and also to recommend
additional publications,
contribute your own reviews of the
PhotoTherapy book, add news or networking
suggestions, share your
own photo-anecdotes, or send any other kind of feedback
to this site or its interactive "PhotoTherapy
Discussion Group". Your communication
is welcomed!
PhotoTherapy
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