Photo psychology
Photo psychology or photopsychology is a specialty within psychology dedicated to identifying and analyzing relationships between psychology and photography.[1] Photopsychology traces several points of contact between photography and psychology.[1]
Many forms of photography have been used in psychology including, patient portrait photographs,[2] family photographs,[3][4] ambiguous photographs[5] and photographers' photographs.[6] Forms of psychological practices using photographs include photoanalysis,[3] phototherapy,[4] Walker Visuals,[5] and Reading Pictures.[6]
Timeline
[edit]At the 111th APA convention in 2003, Joel Morgovsky, a photographer and retired psychology professor from Brookdale Community College, in Lincroft, New Jersey, alongside three other colleagues, presented a timeline of interactions between photography and psychology (see table below).[1][7][8]
| Date | Person | Event | Importance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1856 | Hugh W. Diamond | Portraits help diagnose, treat, and catalogue patients | First point of contact between photography and psychiatry |
| 1973 | Robert U. Akeret | Introduces Photoanalysis | Establishes the use of family photographs in psychotherapy |
| 1983 | Joel Morgovsky | Introduces Reading Pictures | First formal presentation on what would become "reading pictures" |
| 1986 | Joel Walker | Introduces Walker Visuals | First use of ambiguous photographs to be used as projective stimuli for clinical use |
| 1999 | Judy Weiser | Introduces PhotoTherapy | Establishes loose techniques collectively known as phototherapy |
| 2003 | Franklin, Formanek, Blum, & Morgovsky | Present photopsychology timeline at 111th APA convention | First symposium identifying interactions between photography and psychology |
Photography in psychotherapy
[edit]Patient portraits
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In 1856, only a couple of decades after photography began, Hugh W. Diamond, a psychiatrist at the Surrey Asylum in Surrey County, England began taking photographs of his patients to aid in diagnosing and treating them.[9][10][11][12] Since the portraits contained more information about his patients' levels of emotion than language, definitions, or classifications, they helped with more accurate diagnoses.[2][12] For example, mental suffering can be categorized under vague terms such as distress, sorrow, grief, melancholy, anguish, and despair, but a photograph speaks for itself, precisely identifying where the patient is on the scale of unhappiness.[2]
In sharing these portraits with the patients' themselves, Diamond found that the portraits can produce a positive effect on the patients, especially if successive portraits illustrate their progress to recovery.[2] One case study conducted by Diamond revealed how a patient's portraits helped lead to a cure through providing an attainable outside perspective of reality.[2] The patient suffered from delusions which consisted of supposed possession of great wealth and holding status of being a Queen.[2] In seeing her portraits and her frequent conversations about them with her therapist, she was able to gradually let go of her former imagined status.[2]
In addition to helping diagnose and treat his patients, Diamond also suggested that these portraits could help in protection and clear representation of patients in case of readmission; similarly to how mug shots are helpful for prisons with improving certainty of previous conviction and in recapturing someone who might have escaped.[2]
Personal photographs
[edit]Photoanalysis, proposed by Robert U. Akeret, is the study of body language in personal photographs (e.g. family photographs) to increase self-awareness, better understand interpersonal relationships, and more accurately recollect past episodic events.[3][13][14] Phototherapy, like photoanalysis, is a therapeutic technique which analyzes personal photographs and the feelings, thoughts, memories, and associations these photos evoke, as a way to deepen insight and enhance communication during therapy session.[4][15] Currently, phototherapy is being practiced by Judy Weiser in Vancouver, Canada in the PhotoTherapy Center.[4][14][15][16]
Ambiguous photographs
[edit]Walker Visuals, four 13" x 19" color, ambiguous, abstract, dreamlike, and evocative photographs, were created by psychiatrist and photographer, Joel Walker.[5][17][18][19] Similarly to the Rorschach test, what is perceived when looking at these photographs depends on one's own history, expectations, needs, beliefs, feelings, and what happened just before viewing the image.[5][18] Walker created these images after observing how his patients responded to strange photos he had taken and displayed on his office wall.[5][17] From there, Walker expended his collection to include a range of themes from positive to negative.[5] The images act as representations of his patient's inner world which allow them to better verbalize feelings and memories.[5][17][18] Walker visuals can be used universally across culture, language, education, and class.[5]
Photographers' photographs
[edit]Reading Pictures is the study of photographs as reflections of the makers' personal, subjective experiences.[6] Morgovsky, a pioneer in Reading Pictures, established six fundamental mindsets needed for Reading Pictures:[6][20]
- Overcoming The Illusion of Reality (OTIR): Understand that photographs are 2D representations, rather than reality.[6][20]
- The Rule of No Accidents (RNA): Everything in a photograph is there on purpose; created when one makes the decision to expose a moment in time as a representation of a conscious experience.[6][20]
- Free Association (FA): An attitude of openness to projected, emotional content of photograph.[6][20]
- Attribution Process (AP): Guess the cause of observed behavior; ask questions like: "What does it mean that this person would take this particular photograph, of this subject matter, from this point of view, using these methods?".[6][20] This mindset was proposed by Fritz Heider and Harold Kelley.[6]
- Thematic Analysis (TA): Analyze cognitive and emotional themes that run through collections of work to construct a working model of the photographer's experiential world.[6][20]
- Genre and Skill Level (GSL): Take into consideration genre and skill level.[6][20]
- Examples of genre include landscape, still-life, portraiture, documentary, straight, surreal, etc.[6][20]
- Skill level can be classified along levels of articulation (LOA):[6][20]
- Innocent Photographers: camera owners who take pictures on an irregular basis for chronicling family events, vacations, and special moments.[6][20] They do not consider themselves photographers beyond a functional level and articulate themselves the least, but Reading Pictures can still be applied on the work innocents.[6][20]
- Amateur Photographers: people who enjoy photography, join photography societies, and obtain new and updated cameras, lenses, light sources, etc.[6][20] These photographers are less personally expressive, since they are often inspired to imitate work of other photographers they admire, and are masked by attempting to master a technical skill.[6][20]
- Mature Photographers: photographers that consciously use the medium as creative self-expression; they developed their own ways of seeing through the lens and have their own personal style, which is consistent through most of their work.[6][20] This group is the most articulate, so reading a few photos of theirs can provide insight into their personal cognitive and emotional experience.[6][20]
Further reading
[edit]- "The Face of Madness: Hugh W. Diamond and the Origin of Psychiatric Photography" by Sander L. Gilman, Hugh W. Diamond, and John Conolly further discusses details of Diamond's contributions to photopsychology .[21]
- "Portraits of the Insane: The Case of Dr. Diamond" by Adrienne Burrows and Iwan Schumacher is a collection of Dr. H.W. Diamond's work.[22]
- "Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age" edited by Del Loewenthal provides a foundation of phototherapy and describes the most recent developments.[23]
- "Review of Akeret's Photoanalysis" by Dr. Richard Chalfen, published in: Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication.[24]
- "Photolanguage: How Photos Reveal the Fascinating Stories of Our Lives and Relationships" by Robert U. Akeret.[25]
- John Suler's Top 10 Book Reviews & Recommended Readings For Photographic Psychology.[26]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "What is Photo Psychology? | My CMS". photopsychology.com. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Diamond, Hugh W. (2010). "On the Application of Photography to the Physiognomic and Mental Phenomena of Insanity (1856)*". Piscoart. 1: 1–14 – via Unibo.
- ^ a b c Chalfen, Richard (10 January 1974). "Akeret: Photoanalysis" (PDF). Studies in Visual Communication. 1: 57–60. S2CID 51800591. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2018 – via Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania.
- ^ a b c d "PhotoTherapy & Therapeutic Photography Techniques". PhotoTherapy & Therapeutic Photography Techniques. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Walker, Joel (2009). "The Walker Visuals" (PDF). Cancerologia. 4: 9–18.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s "What is Reading Pictures? | My CMS". photopsychology.com. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
- ^ "About Joel Morgovsky | My CMS". photopsychology.com. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
- ^ Morgovsky, Joel (2007). "Photography on the Couch: The Psychological Uses of Photography" (PDF). The General Psychologist: Division ONE. 42: 27–30 – via American Psychological Association.
- ^ "D is for… Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond: Photography and the pseudoscience of physiognomy". National Science and Media Museum blog. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
- ^ "Hugh Welch Diamond | Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum | The Met". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
- ^ "Hugh Welch Diamond (British, 1809–1886) (Getty Museum)". The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
- ^ a b "Portraits of Insanity The Photos of Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond". CVLT Nation. 7 November 2014. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
- ^ Saffady, William (October 1974). "Manuscripts and Psychohistory". The American Archivist. 37 (4): 559. doi:10.17723/aarc.37.4.234216kt88624n30. PMID 11609329.
- ^ a b "Photographic Psychology: Interpreting People Pics". truecenterpublishing.com. Archived from the original on 19 November 2013. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ^ a b "What is PhotoTherapy? | Arts in Therapy Network". www.artsintherapy.com. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^ "Judy Weiser". PhotoTherapy & Therapeutic Photography Techniques. 2 July 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^ a b c Jacobs, Nellie (Spring 2002). "A Picture Unleashes a Thousand Words" (PDF). Medhunters Magazine: 8–10.
- ^ a b c Zakia, Richard (2003). "Perception and Imaging: The Walker Visuals". Perception and Imaging: Photography – A Way of Seeing. 4 – via Taylor & Francis Group.
- ^ "Joel Walker, photographer, Psychiatrist". joelwalker.com. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Mihailescu, Andrada. "Major Practical Project – Hodie Sum: Joel Morgovsky – Reading Pictures". Major Practical Project – Hodie Sum. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ^ Gilman, Sander L.; Diamond, Hugh W.; Conolly, John (2014). Face of Madness: Hugh W. Diamond and the Origin of Psychiatric Photography. Echo Point Books & Media. ISBN 978-1626549234.
- ^ Burrows, Adrienne; Schumacher, Iwan (1990). Portraits of the Insane: The Case of Dr. Diamond. London; New York: Quartet Books. ISBN 978-0704326149.
- ^ Loewenthal, Del, ed. (2013). Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age (1st ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0415667364.
- ^ "Richard Chalfen, PhD / Bio & CV". richardchalfen.com. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ^ Noble, Barnes &. "Photolanguage: How Photos Reveal the Fascinating Stories of Our Lives and Relationships". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ^ "Photographic Psychology: Reviews and Recommended Readings". truecenterpublishing.com. Archived from the original on 5 April 2013. Retrieved 9 April 2018.