The Photography In Psychotherapy (I)

By way of introduction I would note that was in 1986 when I started working and researching in the field of psychotherapy and intensive short of urgency, trying to systematize the planning and coordination of all therapeutic resource which will help speed the process of change.

It was my friend and teacher Dr. Kesselman who contacted me and encouraged me to investigate two of the technical resources that have interested me more deeply into the clinic. It is the use of autobiography and photographs throughout the therapeutic process.

I will present in several posts, the synthesis of a paper published in No. 62 of the "Revista Clínica and Analysis Group" in 1993, under the Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, with the title of "Photography in Psychotherapy" .

We know that usually the family photo album, are often reflected the most important events in the history of individual families, and therefore carry a large volume of information, significant and meaningful to every person who made the family group. Occasionally, iconic references do not correspond to the families, but to facts that show our power and prestige (photos with personalities, professional titles, trophies, photographs, etc.).. The offices and restaurants are full of these dumb things that accompany and mean.

It must be pointed out that both the Autobiography as the photographs are personal documents and as such are privileged sources of information, since they allow access to the history of the characters in a given context. We know that all material supplied is the carrier of a large mass of information, as therapists, we must help to "historicize-place." These materials are a "royal road" access to subjectivity, allowing the reading "in situ", both "official history" or "text", and its environment or "context".

As a tool for exploratory work "archaeological" is seeking "resonances" that lead us to uncover the hidden (by comparing the patient's subjective verbal discourse, with the objective view of what we see in the photographic material) and secondly, as a technical tool , we can intervene on the material providing the "change" therapy.

To the extent that perception defines a space that is always present and the memory is the representation of the past, called iconic memory to the succession of these "trapped" in the photographs. It is "frozen in time psychic space" and therefore are images "objective" and not merely memories and in the Autobiography. Simplified way we can say that while the memory biography reveals a "subjective" History shows Photographic Memory "objective" of a lifetime.

The slogan that impart to apply the photographic material is as follows: "Gather all the photos you can and make reference to his life. Once you have, and solo, proceed to go selecting those that are significant for pleasant or unpleasant and to think I should know. you do not have to figure at all. The final number should not exceed 15. Look to choose and which rejects and why. "

I also request individual photographic filiation is constituted by the four following data: The number of the picture (one picture is one in which the patient was younger or not yet born. For example a photograph of the house looks grandparents), his age in each though he does not appear, a title and a brief commentary on each photo. All this affiliation should be recorded in a paper label affixed to each photograph in particular.

With this material we have already delivered the "Roll Photographic Exploration" or "First Photo Series" which includes the portion of physical space experienced by the patient and their ancestors, susceptible of being embodied photographically.