The Photography In Psychotherapy (II)

Once the patient has selected the photographs and we deliver, we must proceed to the organization of that iconic memory. He was ordained in Exploratory Photo Strip or Photo Series 1 second portion comprising the physical space experienced by the patient and their ancestors, susceptible of being embodied photographically.

Considered for each patient, a prehistory and history. With "prehistory" I mean all the time where the material that is going to be represented photographically, corresponds to a time when the patient was not yet born and called "history" all the photographs referred to the time when the patient and was born.

Typology Photo

During an exploratory Photo Strip there are different types of photos which by their nature require more attention. Attention will make a more complete and most useful technique for implementing the therapeutic process.

Let us consider the following types of photos:

1 .- Photos concealing: These photographs serve to negate any situation, relationship or person who is very contentious for the patient. I remember a patient whose parents got along very badly, to submit their photos, showed me a large format where parents saw very close and happy.

2 .- Photos Ghosts: These are photos that the patient "re-cord that has" but not found. In these cases, I usually ask me to draw or describe me as faithfully as possible. It may be a picture that never existed in reality and is a product of fantasy. The treatment and processing technique that I give is like when a patient asks you describe a dream that impressed and remember vividly.

3 .- Photos Keys: As its name suggests, are those photographs that become central to the course of treatment. Often act as symbols contain information synthesizers unresolved conflicts and as such, is not uncommon for them to rotate around big "tranches" of therapy. A good signal that can alert the therapist about the existence of some key photo is when the patient relates that when we ask for the photos, "he immediately thought" in a particular.

Photographic Analysis

In the image-building techniques used in psychodrama, the process begins with finding an internal image of the protagonist (looks into his biography), then the selected image is spatialized and finally embodied in a scene that dramatizes . In short, "seeks plasma inside and outside," the biography leaves the scene.

The photographic analysis technique the process is reversed: first the "finds" a photographic image on the album and then it "looks" in that picture consistent with the protagonist's inner group. In short: "It is the photo album to the biography."

The patient selects a certain reality and not another, what he means is that the information is significant for that particular psyche. He must be helped to decipher its multiple levels of meaning (manifest, latent, contextual, etc.). The result of this search should be finalized in early psychodynamic hypotheses, such as a comprehensive attempt to understand the patient's psychopathology. All this is achieved by making a joint effort between the optics of the patient and therapist, making a sharing between what the patient brings and what the therapist thinks and feels from the material supplied.

All, and patients are no exception, we have a legend of what happens to us and why we passed, expressing strong resistance to change. That is, we have a special ability to score certain facts of our reality and ignoring others, so that "we invent" a new reality and come to believe us. In my opinion, the photos "as witnesses objectives" of the past, permit, relying on them to question the "facts and circumstances" of today, because we should not forget that reality as such does not exist, but there are opinions about it.

If we understand the patient's life as a "weather strip" where photographic sequence by way of transcribing the adventures are vital, it will be important in a first analysis, to study the correlations between his biography and photos, so we can highlight resonances and dissonance between what "we say" in his biography and "we see" in his photographs.

To illustrate what I just said, I will relate what happened in the treatment of a successful man and made himself.

To show his photographic history stopped at a photograph of their childhood (see picture) saying: "In this picture you can appreciate my humble origins and the woes of my childhood. Note that all children in the photo wear shoes and I am the all that goes in slippers. This can give you an idea of ​​the hardships that we went ... "

As shown in the photo (the child's first bank circled), the patient as a child, plays a central and visible, which does not seem to care much whether or not wearing shoes. He looks happy and shiny.

I pointed out that this child of the photograph did not believe that he passed what he said, as if it had not been embarrassed on the first bank and its expression would be more sad and inhibited. Before my confrontation was perplexed. This contrast between what they "thought" and "saw" Now, was instrumental in placing his "legend" in the appropriate terms.

Thanks to the memory "objective" of the photo, could undo the misunderstanding of his memory "subjective." Without photographic resource had been no not the change in the "opinion" of the reality lived by it.