The Art of Pathography

The artists’ creation of a ‘true self-portrait’ is bound up in meanings of self-hood and individuation; by means of his/her practice becoming a method of developing the artists’ need for self-discovery. Through this self-exploration, the artefact becomes an attempt to reveal something of the artist, a therapeutic tool perhaps, by which the photograph is used as a form of depth psychology. A mixed methodology of autoethnography and thematic analysis is undertaken of the language of response – language generated from the viewing of purely visual data – to examine and record patterns or themes within this information that is relevant to the research question. Through this form of removed analysis - the interpretation of the photograph and not the artist - can a new internal world of the artist be revealed? Is there a particular reading that could be universalised or is this unique to me? Or is the analysis a series of projections, a more of an understanding of the readers? The concerns of this thesis are with the ways in which the production of these photographs and their reception can be incorporated into an art practice and a new self-portrait is revealed.

Introduction and Contents RD - 1 and RD - 2 & RD - 2T



APRIL 2013
RD-2T



The Art of Pathography.
A Thematic Analysis of the Photographic Self-portrait


apter Proposal -3ver_1
The Art of Pathography
A Thematic Analysis of the Photographic Self-portrait


Abstract
The artists’ creation of a ‘true’ self-portrait is bound up in meanings of selfhood and individuation, by means of it becoming a medium of developing the artists’ need for self-discovery. Through this self-exploration, the artefact becomes an attempt to reveal something of the artist, a therapeutic tool by which the photograph is used as a form of depth psychology. Representations of self have an established history in art and more recently in photography - which is where my interest lies - where lens based artists have referenced their own pathography or psychological make-up.
Over a two-year study, photographic self-portraits are produced, in conjunction with their ongoing interpretation by two psychotherapists. Just as in phototherapy - as the artefact helps the client bring things to mind that are otherwise repressed – in addition to the language as response, a therapeutic relationship develops. Within this relationship, just as the therapist feels into the client’s internal world through identification and a process of shared subjectivity, this practice-based thesis sets out to document new knowledge through the process of this shared experience between artist and reader.
A thematic analysis is undertaken of the language of responses – language generated from the viewing of purely visual data – to examine and record patterns or themes within this data that is relevant to the research question. The project seeks to make comparisons between these themes that come about from the analysis of the written data both from the individual responses and a comparison the combined response; documenting this intersubjective environment in terms of projections.
Through this form of removed analysis - the interpretation of the photograph and not the artist - can a new internal world of the artist be revealed? Is there a particular reading that could be universalised or is this unique to me? Or is the analysis a series of projections, a more of an understanding of the readers? The concerns of this thesis are with the ways in which the production of these photographs and their reception can be incorporated into an art practice and a new self-portrait is revealed.

Keywords: Photography, Self-Portrait, Thematic Analysis, Psychoanalysis, Projection, Introjection, Intersubjectivity, Art Therapy, Thematic Apperception Test, Pathography.

Definitions


Pathography.
A psychoanalytic approach to the realm of art that depends on detailed knowledge of an artist’s personal life history.
Thematic Analysis.
Examines and records patterns (or "themes") within data.
Apperception.
A mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas he or she already possesses.
Projection.
The presentation of an image on a surface, the unconscious transfer of one's own desires or emotions to another person.
Thematic Apperception Test.
A form of projective test designed to reveal a person's social drives or needs by their interpretation of a series of pictures of emotionally ambiguous situations.
Reflexive.
A method or theory in the social sciences that takes account of itself or of the effect of the personality or presence of the researcher, on what is being investigated.
Intersubjectivity.
A concept in modern schools of psychotherapy, where it has found application to the theory of the interrelations between analyst and analysand.
Depth Psychology.
An approach to psychology that explains personality in terms of unconscious processes.


Chapter One – Theory

The Self-portrait – A Means of Communication

Within art history, the artists’ self-portrait has found many roles. The true self-portrait is bound up in meanings of selfhood and individuation; one has to delve even deeper to find the ‘I’ behind what is me. ‘I have a face, but a face is not what I am’ says Julian Bell (2000). The physical representation observed can obscure as much knowledge as might reveal. Just as therapy might attempt to reveal, can a photograph exhibit ‘what is me?’ A self-portrait occupies a space somewhere between seer and seen - what I see and what I feel may be observed as two different things.

Art as Search for Self
Photographic self-portraiture has an established history, where artists have referenced their own psychological make-up, described as and used as a form of ‘depth psychology’. Shirin Neshat, Gillian Wearing, Sarah Lucas, Cindy Sherman, Helen Chadwick, and Nan Goldin are all lens-based artists who might use photography psychodynamically. That is, as a way of accessing a sense of self through self-portraiture and using the study of family dynamics or interpersonal relations as their method. Like these artists before, through my self-portraiture and its reflection, studied through the lens of psychoanalytical theory, I will discuss my practice and its impact on access to self-identity and relationships; this interaction with the external world.

The Present State of the Therapeutic use of Photography
This thesis, in combination with photographic self-portraits, is concerned in the reading and documenting of art as a means of communication, specifically through the use of photography. The premise that all art production and presentation, to some extent, comes about from a need to articulate internal worlds as means of self-discovery and to share these with a similarly attuned audience. This draft chapter The Therapeutic use of Photography, is concerned with how the outcome of this project can impact on, or advance new knowledge in, the area of photography alongside language in an intersubjective environment, that self-portraiture can be used as a therapeutic tool. This chapter looks at the existing uses of photography therapeutically, specifically through the use of the portrait of self.
Photograph as Projective Test. The Projective Apperception Test
The projective test uses visual modality of the patient, along with interpretive responses from the psychologist, as a way of gaining insight into the psychopathology of the patient. In it, the subject is asked to respond to images – often non-specific, ambiguous images, described as 'vague material' - that would induce a narrative from the patient. These responses can then be interpreted. These tests are usually presented in a therapeutic environment, interpretations are written up as the test progressed. These assessments reveal unconscious motivations and defenses on the part of the projector. Further understandings of these stories are made by the reintroduction of the patient to their narratives by the interpreter. The series of images being delivered to the Guild over this two year period offer an opportunity for two readers to project their desires and affective meaning on to photographic self-portraits, creating in the form of language a shared understanding of their meaning.

Psychoanalytical - The Intersubjective Space – Projection – The Third Space. (Ogden, Bion)



Chapter Two – Method – Stage One

Art and Therapy as Collaborative Project
The readers are psychotherapists in training at The Guild of Psychotherapists (Known as Db. and Eb.). The readers do not confer. I have met the readers once, at the beginning of the project. Over a two-year period, twenty-four self-portraits are produced and delivered to The Guild, and are ‘analysed’ on a monthly basis. These reports are compiled into a bound volume with identified sentences for ease of reference. (Example Appendix I). The data collection ends in July 2013, when the readers will offer a brief synopsis of their experience of the project.

The Initial Process - Original Image Production
The images vary in size and media. Always photographs, however they may be prints, framed, or box mounted. Sometimes they are three-dimensional. The artwork may be colour, monochrome colour or black and white. The images are ‘finished’; by this I mean to a standard that could be hung on a gallery wall, however they are referred to as interim pieces, as the artist’s intent is to re-make the work as assessments are made.

The Analytical Reports - Readings
The readers where offered four questions. See Appendix II. Eb., structures her responses in the requested questions, these are: 1. Presenting Problems. 2. What do you see? 3. Unconscious communication. The internal world of the client, Transference and Counter Transference. And 4. Any Psychoanalytical theory, clinical concepts or psychopathology of the artist.
Db., does not structure his responses, simply answering the question, ‘What is the picture of and what does it say?’

Artists Response - Reading the reports
Upon receipt of the assessment I will read and then re-read the reports. Certain words or phrases will consciously ‘speak to me’. All the data will affect the remaking of the work. I will sometimes reflect upon image reports in context to other work. I will not engage chronologically with the work, I will access both phrases from Eb.’s responses or Db.’s randomly. I will carry a notebook around and also the text so far as an aide memoire.

Artists Response – Remaking the Work
There will be often text reworked into the image. Key phrases/words, that ‘speak’ to me may stand out. I might have an affinity to one of the reader’s responses, however this is not always the same reader. In some cases I integrate both readers responses.



Chapter Two – Method – Stage Two

Thematic analysis is the most common form of analysis in qualitative research. It examines and records patterns (or "themes") within data, relevant to a specific research question. These phases are: familiarisation with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes among codes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final report. Explain Bellack. Account has to be taken of the reflexive nature of this project, and given that qualitative work is inherently an interpretive research, the biases, values, and judgments of the researchers need to be explicitly acknowledged so they are taken into account in data presentation.


Chapter Three – Methodology
'There is a sense of crisis in the relationship between clinical practice and psychoanalytical theory', states Lepper, in her paper 2009 paper , The Pragmatics of Therapeutic Interaction: An Empirical Study.
In the area of discussion around the gathering of empirical knowledge and ways  of which one provides quantitive information from qualitative, often highly subjective data. She suggests that any additional research obtained in this area of interaction can be seen as a useful addition to this discussion, of its overall coherence and its contemporary use in today's therapeutic engagements; this practice offers an additional viewpoint. This process has relevance in the study of psychoanalytical theory in that it offers another important view, to be taken alongside other methods, it shows an important alternative view into the ideas of intersubjectivity and art appreciation.

Reasons for the use of thematic analysis will be discussed, as opposed to other research methods, such as a case study, or pragmatics. The two therapists are chosen, to parallel my interest in psychoanalytical theory and art and could be seen to represent a ‘parental authority’. I researched help from practicing psychotherapist’s who where psychodynamically trained, interested in an artistic collaboration - sharing my lexicon of language for psychodynamic theory as a form of depth psychology - and were interested in offering an insight into the symbolic nature of photographs. State why Thematic and not, for instance, a case study.


Chapter Four - Results and Analysis

As with the process of thematic data analysis, phases of which are:
1. Familiarisation with data.
2. Generating initial codes.
3. Searching for themes among codes.
4. Reviewing themes.
5. Refining and naming themes, and finally.
6. Producing the report; a review of projections will be detailed. 
The intention is to note themes and patterns of data that are in agreement throughout the project, simplistically the results will highlight:
1. An agreement between the three of us – that the data is what the image is about.
2. Information that I disagree with but both readers are in agreement in what the image is about – the photograph conveys an idea I am consciously unaware of.
3. There is a unique understanding, different to us all – there is no conscious agreement.
Account has to be taken of the reflexive nature of this project, and given that qualitative work is inherently an interpretive research, the biases, values, and judgments of the researchers need to be explicitly acknowledged so they are taken into account in data presentation. This data analysis stage, is overseen by a clinical supervisor.


Chapter Five – Conclusions

The project seeks to make comparisons between themes that come about from the analysis of the written data - from the viewing of purely visual data – themes that indicate an understanding of the photograph and themes that may highlight purely the projections of the reader.
Through analysis of purely photographs, can insight in the combined intersubjective world of artist and reader; be incorporated in a systematic way.

This research will demonstrate that it is possible to document the dynamic process of a collaborative creative exercise, from a turn-by-turn process of development of ideas, enriching the ideas of psychoanalytical theory and clinical practice into the realm of image making; the using of images as a means to offer an understanding of the role of intersubjectivity in the art process and the pathology of an artist through this process.



NOV 2012 RD-2T 
not approved with the following comments from the external reader.

I base my comments on the candidate’s stated aims:
My aim is to produce a thesis of interest to the therapeutic community and art therapists alike. To shed new light on the intersubjective experience both within the analytic encounter and art production process, making available new strategies (missing word) work within these two fields in the realm of phototherapy; drawing on established ideas and also adding new innovative projective ideas.
1. The aims include an aspiration to produce a thesis of interest. The candidate needs to describe how this interest will be measured or judged.
2. The thesis is aimed at two constituencies: the therapeutic community and art therapists. The current supervisory team does not include expertise in either (physcho)therapy or art therapy.
3. The aims also include an aspiration to ‘shed new light on the intersubjective experience within the analytic encounter and the art production process’. There is no declared experience within the supervisory team in the analytic encounter.
4. The candidate goes on to say he wants to ‘make available new strategies for...’
It is not clear, but I assume these new strategy will be developed by the candidate within the proposed research.
The candidate needs to state the purpose of these new strategies.
5. In conclusion:
First, the supervisory team needs to be extended to include someone with the required expertise in therapy, and psychoanalytic criticism and with the ability to communicate with and share this expertise with the current supervisors.
Second, when the supervisory team has been extended, the RD2T form should be redrafted with the support and guidance of the new, extended team.
Third, the decision on transfer from MPhil to PhD should be postponed until the supervisory team has been extended and the RD2T form has been redrafted and resubmitted.

Note.
At the redrafting stage, it would be worth reducing the number of errors that have slipped into the text. This can only help the reader understand what is surely a very interesting research proposal.
Example 1: “There will be 24 images and transcripts to chose from, however the chose of images will be decided apron in conjunction with another psychoanalytical reader, to focus on the actual area of intersubjectivity that is the main focus of the production and theoretical basis of this thesis. The first step of any research is to systematically sample the data.”
Example 2: “For the purpose of this project, I will be refereeing to the notion of the ‘shared intersubjective experience’.”


2)  Recommendation by the Reader

I do not recommend that transfer be approved:


The Psychodynamics of Phototherapy Explored Through the Production of an Alternative Family Album


Contents


                        Preface

                            Abstract


                        Introduction
                                       Orientation
                                       Rationale
                                       Aims and Objectives
                                       Methodology


                       Literature Review
                                      What is the state of debate in my field?
                                      What are the key works, theories, drawn upon?


                       Presentation of my Research
                                      Findings
                                      Commentary
                                      Analysis of findings


                      Conclusion

Preface

Having become disillusioned with working professionally as a photographer, I embarked upon two part-time MA courses, one in Fine Art at The Cass, the second at WPF (Roehampton University) in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Theory and Practice; the bringing together my passion for these two subjects has developed into my present research project.

Through my study of childhood experience and memory through my MA photographic project and alongside this, training in psychoanalytical concepts and working with clients psychodynamically, I became aware of the therapeutic nature of my art practice. As both being worthwhile from a point of view of satisfying myself as a practicing artist, but at the same time producing new knowledge as a value of those using creative output as phototherapy. Was it possible to demonstrate the social usefulness of this project as Art Therapy?

I build on, among others, two key fields of knowledge in this area. Jo Spence (1995, 1998a, b, 2005) who used self-portraits as a therapeutic tool; a way of identifying value of her photography, particularly in her ‘Final Project’ (1986) in which she produced self-portraits and documents her process while suffering from breast cancer. I am in constant contact with Terry Dennett, her ex-partner, co-producer and founder of the Jo Spence memorial Archive and while doing so, have secured the Jo Spence Memorial Archive for the universities own archive.

I am in contact with Professor Del Loewenthal at Roehampton University (2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010a,b, 2011). His approach is to use found photographs, often authors unknown, in the treatment of traumatised individuals in psychotherapeutic work.

The project is very much an enquiry into intersubjectivity and it must be acknowledged that the input of Db and Eb, two psychotherapists (initialled for the sake of anonymity) from ‘The Guild’ has been crucial to the development of this project. The Guild of Psychotherapists is a psychodynamic training and research training organisation, founded in 1974 by a group of practitioners from Freudian, Jungian and Phenomenological backgrounds. Their aim was to establish a pluralistic professional body to foster independence of thought, a spirit of inquiry, and freedom to develop creatively for the benefit of the profession and the public seeking psychological help. Since then, the Guild has developed in accordance with this tradition, valuing and promoting different psychoanalytic perspectives.

http://www.guildofpsychotherapists.org.uk

Preface



I was told a rather agitated man had visited the gallery where the image ‘Session V – Ibid.’ (Illustrated above), was exhibited. The photograph is box mounted and some lines of text are written beneath the image.

           ‘I didn’t see it. I didn’t see what was obviously lacking – a face. How can someone
           not manage –seemingly struggle but not manage – to see their face in the mirror?’
           Db 2012

He was drawn to this piece over others and had spent many minutes observing it. The invigilator enquired if he required any help, however he seemed gruff and aggressive - unapproachable. He had been entranced by the piece but, as explained by the invidulator but ‘left in an angry state’.


The following day, while I was at the exhibition he returned. I explained that I was the author of the piece, again, without any interaction the man left, however, he returned a few minutes later.


Reader - ‘What’s it all about then?’

Artist - ‘What do you see? I could tell you what I mean by it, however I would be interested in what you see’

Reader - ‘I find it difficult, I can’t see a face; this is my experience…’

Artist - ‘What do you see if you look in a mirror then?’

Reader - ‘I see a someone who is not understood - people think I’m aggressive and unapproachable, they can’t trust me - think I’m going to nick something’

Artist - ‘Well, I’m asking what you might see beyond the reflection, underneath the surface’

Reader - ‘Well, there is nothing there’

Artist - ‘Well then, that’s what the picture is about’


The above vignette, and the conversation that followed, (a quite in-depth discussion of childhood experience and his experience having an authoritarian father), illustrates the core of my project, the intersubjective world of artist and reader. Being a practicing psychodynamic psychotherapist I am interested in the shared subjective experience, unconscious communication and the power of art to reveal something of the artist and the viewer in this shared domain.

The client analyst interaction is littered with metaphor of language and of the image and it is in the discussion of this shared world of intersubjectivity where change and understanding occurs. This interaction requires playing creatively. In this space, through this exchange of dialogue, a representation of the client’s internal world emerges and by the use of these definitions and of language, a shared experience becomes apparent.

Art’s ability to create a shared narrative, that which is not that completely that of the artist or that of the reader, is a commonly discussed theory within psychoanalysis. For the purpose of this project, I will be refereeing to the notion of the ‘shared intersubjective experience’. Put simply, the space between a client/analyst encounter, or the space between artwork and viewer where a unique intersubjective concept is created; a unique space, not belonging to either.  Theorist include Bion (1933) who talks of ‘Reverie’, Winnicott in the 1970’s referred to this encounter as ‘The Potential Space’ and the theorist who is of particular interest to me is Ogden who discusses this phenomenon as the ‘Intersubjective Analytic Third’ (1992, 1995)

The self-portrait images presented, data collected as interpretations and how it is integrated into the art practice represents this intersubjective world.

Mirroring this concept of knowledge and understanding revealed through this shared environment of analyst and client in the therapeutic encounter (the process by which the analyst feels his way into the client’s internal world through identification and a shared subjectivity), this practice based thesis sets out to document the process of a shared experience between artist and reader. Over a 2-year period, 24 photographic self-portraits in conjunction with their ongoing interpretation by two psychotherapists are produced. Using the self-portraits, an understanding can be made of this shared experience; where the image develops alongside the language of interpretation, where words are introjected back into the art practice. These interpretations are seen as projections of the readers that are incorporated back into the final artefact, becoming a shared pathology of artist and viewer. This research documents this intersubjective environment, the creation of images of a shared experience; in becoming a collaborative project, a new combined narrative is revealed.

Explained through the lens of psychoanalytical theory, the concerns of this artist are with the ways in which the production of these photographs and their reception can be incorporated in an art practice and also create a shared dialogue in the development of techniques in art therapy.



Literature Review. What is the state of debate in my field?
                       
            'There is a sense of crisis in the relationship between clinical practice and             psychoanalytical theory', states Lepper (2009) in her paper, ‘The Pragmatics of Therapeutic Interaction: An Empirical Study’. There are difficulties in the area of the creation of empirical knowledge - ways of providing quantitive information from qualitative, often highly subjective data. She suggests that any additional research obtained in this area of interaction can be seen as a useful addition to this discussion, of its overall coherence and its contemporary use in today's therapeutic engagements; this practice offers an additional viewpoint. This process has relevance in the study of psychoanalytical theory in that it offers another important view, to be taken alongside other methods, it shows an important alternative view into the ideas of intersubjectivity and art appreciation, as Jimenez also states,

            'The convergence of evidence from several data sources [which] will prove the best support for theories of mind proposed by psychoanalysis' (2006).           
It is in this exchange, in psychotherapy and suggested as part of this project, that individual encounters bear meaning, but also that past sessions inform the next; it is in this joint expectation that a shared narrative begins to develop. The therapists skill is to stay informed by their past engagements, without focusing on specific information, to hold a general picture in mind that is eventually honed into an image that will, when reflected back to the client, be of some use to them. Drawing parallels with my art practice, the images are seen as individual engagements, but only come together as final 'picture' or narrative in the final exhibition, where the adapted images are developed and displayed, in order, to reveal the picture of the artist/reader as a whole. As with therapy, the personality develops into a sense of realness in conjunction with the therapist, a development of the listeners subjectivity and that of the artist developed alongside each other; a joint narrative of experience.


Rationale

There is much debate around the interactional nature, which form much of the foundations of psychodynamic work with patients. The ideas of transference, countertransference, projection, introjection and projective identification - which can be also described as intuition, empathy, and general interpersonal communications or simply gestures - the intersubjective domain of social interaction.  How we take in this information and put out our version of events makes up the majority of what we do as adults and this interaction can be traced back to our earliest relationships, from our earliest dyadic interrelations. This is the intersubjective matrix of the therapeutic environment and at the heart of artistic interaction. This research offers an opportunity to document intersubjectivity through images and language, referencing the changes throughout this process and responses to the final artwork, the shared narrative. As Ogden states,

            'Language is not simply a package in which communications are wrapped, but the medium in which experience is bought to light in the process of being spoken or written' (1999 p. 201)

The 'experience' is bought to light through the production of these individual images; however, the language of the interpretation is an expression of the readers' engagement and clearly not simply a verbalisation of the meaning of the images presented. This relationship between this language and the artists intent is verbalised via the transference and also through the process of projection; this sits at the heart of psychodynamic debate and also a means of how the artist has made manifest his or her latent content to the viewer. This research, takes as its stating point that the original artwork is an action toward such awareness and the process of integration of interpretations the dialogue that instigates change.

This is described by Lowewald (1960), who describes

'[the] psychoanalytic process [as] the significant interactions between patient and analyst which ultimately lead to structural changes in the patients personality' p.16


Aims and Objectives

My aim is to produce a thesis of interest to the therapeutic community and art therapists alike. To shed new light on the intersubjective experience both within the analytic encounter and art production process, making available new strategies work within these two fields in the realm of phototherapy; drawing on established ideas and also adding new innovative projective ideas.
Methodology

There will be 24 images and transcripts to chose from, however the chose of images will be decided apron in conjunction with another psychoanalytical reader, to focus on the actual area of intersubjectivity that is the main focus of the production and theoretical basis of this thesis. The first step of any research is to systematically sample the data.

The focus will be on twelve or these pieces of work and their interpretations. They will be chosen to illustrate the process of the intersubjective process resulting in the production of the final exhibition and the written thesis that underwrites it. The twelve images will be chosen by how easy it feels to integration the interpretations into the work, how adaptive this secondary process is, more specifically they will have:-

            1.  Shared theory of interpretations of understanding made by maternal and paternal readers, a consensus of opinion between readers.

            2.   Artists intent experience portrayed by one or both readers.

            3.   Recurring themes, psychopathology or specific defences highlighted.

The documentation of this process is to illustrate what is being communicated, how these are interpreted and that language introjected back into the creative process.

            'Psychoanalysis, like any other field, requires careful descriptive work.' (Kaechele et al., 2006 p. 811 Secondary reference)

The research sets out to explore and document the change of narrative, viewed in a collaborative exchange, of the interaction between a creative process and its interpretations: Self-reflection is met with interpretive language and answered by further creative production.

Using methods to explore and support the empirical dialogue between the psychodynamic relationship between artist and viewer, mirroring the turn-by-turn encounter in the therapeutic interaction, it focuses on the intersubjective. In this therapeutic conversation artist and reader, as speakers in engagement and anticipation, employ strategies to achieve their own projection, defence, autobiographical needs.

Psychoanalysis, as with creative presentation, is not a simple dyadic experience, it is also an intersubjective shared social process, I have chosen to integrate elements of this shared experience into the making of the work. It highlights the internal world of the artist as the photographer offers up revealed defences and also the internal world of the reader projected upon the work.



Literature Review. What are the key works, theories, ideas I draw on?

I shall describe the research in the context of it being a development of the Projective Test – that the written assessments should be treated as projections of the reader. I will argue that the photographs produced in conjunction with their analytical reports, along with the remaking of the final artefact (which often includes an integration of the text) becomes a new narrative, which combines the projections of the reader and their re-introjection by the artist.
The projective test is a concept used in psychology. The test uses visual modality of the patient, along with interpretive responses from the psychologist, as a way of gaining insight into the psychopathology of the patient. In it, the subject is asked to respond to images. Probably the most famous of such tests is the Rorschach Test, otherwise known as the 'Inkblot Test', where near symmetrical shapes, produced by folding a sheet of paper containing wet ink, in half and presented to the patient in sequence are used.

Developed by the Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in 1921, the test developed into 10 specific inkblots. The resulting shapes, printed on to card, are shown to the subject in order and responses made by the patient noted verbatim. Describing the ambiguous nature of the designs offers an insight into the subject’s personality, characteristics and emotional functioning. In the 60's the test was widely used, in a therapeutic setting. Responses to the cards where seen as a form of free association and these initial responses are documented. There is an opportunity to re-engage by re-presenting the cards, offering an opportunity to discuss what they originally saw and explain why. This is known as the enquiry stage.
The results are used to gauge motivations, response tendencies, cognitive operations, affectivity, personal and interpersonal perceptions.



The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was developed in the 30's by Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan at the Harvard University. Less ambiguous in nature, situations, in the form of illustrations, could be interpreted by the reader in relation to past experiences and current motivations; this is seen as a more psychodynamic approach than the Inkblot Test. The illustrations devised for this test derived from magazine photographs of the day, it was noted that the decision to use illustrative versions of photographs, as more simplified illustrations, provided more deviant stories, that where more negative. Patients where able to associate with content that comprised people and places, they would tell a story more easily and in doing so, their defences would be lowered and needs and motivations would be highlighted. Because the cards where provocative, yet ambiguous being asked to comment on the outcome of the description of each individual card was an important way of creating a unique narrative from the pictures. The main questions at the outset of the test are stated as,

     What has led up to the event shown
     What is happening at the moment
     What the characters are feeling and thinking
     What the outcome of the story was

Again clinical understanding was made of the responses; of the client’s projections and although there are scoring systems in place, as with the Inkblot, these are rarely used. Clinical interpretations would be made of the narrative and these used in conjunction with other observations. Both the inkblot and TAT offers an opportunity to observe clustering process, highlighting defence mechanisms and recurring affects, as my images evoke.

The starting point of this project was originally an attempt to reveal an internal world of the artist. Through production of self-portrait photographs, in combination with their interpretation or analysis, a way of accessing, the revealing of and documenting aspects of the artist’s unconscious pre-verbal past, was devised. Another factor was how these images and text based interpretations by trained psychotherapists, might influence future productions of images and through the documentation of this process, create a new narrative; in doing so revealing new knowledge. However, through the collaborative nature of the research, this process of analysis has become as much about what is projected on to the images by their analysis, as much as achieving a level of understanding of the internal world of the artist made from the reading of the photographs.

For the reader, the frustrating experience of writing about the photographs and not getting anything back creates a paradox. In this relationship we need to ask, what are the interpreters possibly writing about? Is it the photographs and what they represent? The readers notion of the photographer and what he might be saying? His unconscious communication? Or is it perhaps simply their fantasies, something the images evoke from their past? It is possibly more accurate to suggest that it is a documentation of all these things, emerging from a position somewhere between the two. How does their expression fit into this mêlée of affective meaning? The interpreters are undoubtedly writing about what I am trying to say, there is a genuine attempt, on my part to give meaning and 'realness' of expression, to communicate aspects of my past through the images. However for the readers, not getting anything back requires that they must surmise, risk, guess even, what the image represents. They do this through the process of projection and introjection of their fantasies within this Potential Space, using the image as a mirror. Through the writing of the text, a description of this shared experience is revealed. In this realm of intersubjectivity, all three participants, the artist and both readers, share the same language of psychoanalytical theory and practice; share a familiar journey of clinical practice in their training and influences.

This project offers a new projective technique, an extension of the Inkblot and TAT tests. By maintaining a relatively narrow focus on choice of readers, of their theoretical understanding, their use of language and interpretations made through the lens of psychoanalytical theory, a shared understanding of latent content is made. When these images are presented for analysis, they are in a relatively raw, unfinished form, using free association, the primary process, as spontaneously as possible and by incorporating as many elements of the primary processes as possible. Having been assessed, I will re-make the work for final presentation. This will represent a purely secondary process of integration of the artwork and the text into the final piece. This final piece will represent an accurate image of the artist’s intent, in collaboration with the readers’ phantasies of my intent, a shared reality.






Conclusion

I will discuss from the position of the artworks being a specific type of projective test and in doing so, a way of accessing aspects of the readers' projections. I will research further the notion of intersubjectivity within this project and with this knowledge, in conjunction with a review of the photographer intent and documentation of the remaking of pieces produce the final conclusions.

My project looks to demonstrate and document the experience of the combined intersubjective world of artist and reader, a collaborative interaction and how this process can be incorporated in a systematic way, influencing the final production of work; the study of the artist /psychotherapist interaction and its development described in psychodynamic terms, looking at projections in the relationship between them and their relationship in the final presentation.

This research will demonstrate that it is possible to observe and document the dynamic process of a collaborative creative exercise, from a turn-by-turn process of development of ideas, enriching the ideas of psychoanalytical theory and clinical practice into the realm of image making; using images as a means to offer an understanding of the role of intersubjectivity in the art process. As the title of my thesis suggests, an inference to parenting is made, as a mutually constructed process by which the reader interprets the intention and an ongoing dialogue ensues, allowing my practice to gain, as with Freud's reference to dreams, another, 'Royal road to the unconscious' (Freud 1899)

The work offers theorists and art therapists a novel reflection and deeper understanding of these processes. It also offers an original approach to phototherapy, that is to say clients could be encouraged to re-take photographs based on interpretive feedback. This is of course an important aspect of any creative process, as the artist is re-making over and again, informed by unconscious processes as the work develops, a re-doing until a satisfactory result has emerged.











MAR 2012 RD-2

Work in progress, not previously submitted to RSPG.

1.     Methodology. Process (1a) and an overview of the research method (1b) chosen for the project.
2.     Extract from published paper on pre-verbal communication. Finding this Voice
3.     Presentation of language derived from images.
4.     Interpretation of initial feedback
5.     Bibliography.

1a Methodology-Process
The significance of obscured information in a photograph is, perhaps, as revealing as the overt message that the photograph communicates. Recent critical discourse on photography has addressed the notion of the ‘concerned photographer’, where such practitioners’ key role is to witness the ‘truth’, documenting what is visible in the external world. However, many photographers are engaging with what is closer to home; social interactions, inter-personal relationships and representations of their inner world. The ‘concerned’ photographer now turns the camera inward. Through my self-portraiture and study of psychoanalytical theory, I will discuss my practice and its impact on access to self-identity, relationships and interaction with this perceived internal world.

The production of self-portraits and their assessment is at the core of this project. The final representation of the ‘An Alternative Family Album’ is an exhibition of artefacts, around twenty-six in all, many of which are constructed. Often being made of several layers, these images are made to be experienced, as indeed the analysts engage with them at assessment. An onscreen two-dimensional presentation would not represent an engagement, but would be another representation of the work. The final exhibition is then underpinned by the thesis. This practice based project could be described as an intersection, or synthesis of, contemporary photographic practice linked textually and questioned through a form of social science questionnaire; this is underpinned by psychoanalytical theory.

Photographic self-portraiture has an established history, where artists have referenced their own psychological make-up, could be described and has been used as a form of ‘depth psychology’. This production of ‘An Alternative Family Album’ is a metaphor for the visualisations of conflict that would surface in the psychoanalysis of the artefacts.
Francesca Woodman (1958-81), produced five hundred self-portraits in her short lifetime before her suicide, all ‘alluding to her troubled state of mind’ (Bright. S. 2010 p.25). Sam Taylor-Wood (Fuck, Suck, Spank, Wank 1993) uses self-portraiture as personal expression after having a mastectomy, after a second bout of cancer (Self Portrait in Single Breasted Suit with Hare, 2001). Jo Spence, (Cultural Sniping: The Art of Transgression, 1995, Beyond the Perfect Image 2005) famously has used her camera as a therapeutic tool, for the same reasons as Taylor-Wood. Nan Goldin, uses her camera to document her life and that of her friends. For over 30 years, in an uncompromising manner creating narratives of her sexual and drug taking exploits. Probably her most famous photograph being, ‘Nan, One Month after being Battered, 1984’, showing her exit from an abusive relationship. Gillian Wearing uses photographs of her immediate family as the starting point for Album (2003). Having masks constructed of family members and using these to examine her family history through photography These staged portraits are presented in the more traditional studio style of the time of her childhood and that of her parents.

The concept of performance, an important part of my process, within the genre of self portrait production is illustrated very well by Melanie Manchot’s series ‘Gestures of Demarcation’ (2001). Here, locations and the portraits themselves are left to the responsibility of the ‘other’, where the production is entrusted with the assistant’s involvement having first being briefed by the artist. Trish Morrissey, creates her new family album by introducing strangers to pose with her in ‘traditional family holiday locations. The series, Front (2005-7), are ‘made up’ families, seemingly so authentic, yet created by finding existing families and then replacing the significant female adult with herself. Filippo Maggia (2007) references a comment by the artist Moffat, ‘that "Making art is quite therapeutic". This brief statement reveals much of the artist's personality and above all about her manner of interpreting the artistic experience, a practice that frequently refers to her personal episodes and events’. (p.25)

It may come to the attention of the reader that this rich source of reference comes from the realm of female photographers and that my work will reference the fact that I am a male artist delving into this area of auto photo-biography.


1b Methodology-Research Method

A robust research method for this project is to be found from the realm of social research. I have chosen a method where I can synthesise the images and language from the reports from the qualitative realm, to the quantifiable. To achieve a higher level of abstraction, where patterns, themes, clusters of knowledge can be seen and documented, psychoanalytic theory can then be used as a lens, through which to observe these images and texts.
In social research, hermeneutics is often used to stress the importance of inner life experience, mainly in the study of cultures past and specifically in the study of ancient texts. What people say and do can only be understood about what they feel ‘from the inside’ (Sage dictionary of Social Research Methods)
Case study research describes an in-depth investigation of one or more personal or community case studies. This can vary from a simple narrative and description to a very rigorous study, however as a single case study is by definition ‘not sufficiently representative’. (Sage dictionary of Social Research Methods)
Writing up my results will be based on designing a mixed method of research, using the images and text as qualitative data (intersubjective, understanding that it is open ended, including personal interpretation of findings) and quantitative, written up as an experimental study that can withstand the scrutiny of being looked at through the lens of psychoanalytical theory.
This will be a concurrent study (as it is a narrative and one piece of work will influence the next) gathering from both quantitative and qualitative data in tandem, merging and integrating them to best understand the research problem.

‘The intent of this concurrent mixed method study is to document the production of self-portraits alongside their interpretation by the author and other trained psychotherapists. In the study a third party collaborator (psychoanalytic reader) will be asked to measure the relationship between the analysts subjective comments and the artists self-portraits over time. At the same time, the voice of the artist will be explored using the information from a collaborator.’
‘The reason for combining both quantitative and qualitative data, is to better understand this research problem by converging both quantitative (broad theoretical trends) and qualitative (detailed views) data’. (John Creswell, Design research, 2009 p.135)

This is a documented sequence and through the production of this alternative family album, which is both visual and text based, I discover, develop and understand more of the nature of pre-verbal communication, and document this narrative of change.



2 Finding This Voice

The therapist finds his voice with his client essentially as an artist does, creating a joint metaphorical and creative language. Ordinary language, is essentially practical and concerned with external reality, it is object related and it needs considerable adaptation before it can be used to embody subjective phenomena like symbols and art.
Language, of course, offers us an important form of shared communication regarding external objects however, non-verbal communications of symbols offer us a much more profound insight into inner objects and feelings. It has the power to move, to pierce (Barthes 1981) the inner self and that of others, our shared experience.
In the therapist’s room, language is the way of finding a common voice with that of the client, however a person’s true self lies deep in their preverbal world, the world the artist accesses, it is here that the artist’s important and often most difficult forms of expression are communicated. These lie beyond the reach of ordinary language, as with artwork, they show a perception of authenticity, the true self; this may be what is at core of non-verbal communication; recognition of a place where the self is made. This joy of being recognised (by the artist/viewer) of being responded to (heard) is the confirmation that is so desired, a confirmation of self or the creation of the good enough, more perfect maternal object.

3 Language tabulation See Appendix II. The Limits of Language

In his book For and Against Psychoanalysis. 1997, Stephen Frosh describes making an interpretation ‘as like taking a stills camera to photograph something, representing something that was there at that moment, “true” in an approximate kind of way, but never quite to be the same again’. ‘No interpretation can be the truth, but like language itself, performative’ (1997 p.122). This act of interpretation, says Frosh, gives the subject ‘the opportunity to seize the lost or hidden meanings and re-own them, restoring an identity between the subject and interpersonal intersubjective truths, allowing the emergence of unconscious fantasies out of which meaningful insight might become known, and in doing so, improving that flow to free associations’.

It is essential for this enquiry, to remain a critical vision and throw light on the process of new discoveries. The research question that is asked is, can the documentation of image production deepen our understanding of early infant development and is the methodology consistent and honest? By keeping the enquiry as a study of pre-verbal language, more universal insights might be made. The goal is not necessarily the truth, in the empirical sense of what really happened, but rather an understanding that it includes a powerful affective and experiential component. As Flax (1981 p.54) states, ‘The past is lived through the transference, it is not merely grasped intellectually’.
In the therapist’s session, successful outcomes are a form of linguistically mediated self-knowledge that places a client in a more controlled position over his life’s experiences and relationships. It uncovers a process as a system of tensions and reconciliations always on the move and in flux. The production and assessment of my photographs will uncover ‘truths’ or series of ‘truths’ of the human condition. The to and fro between the analysing of and production of work in this intersubjective domain, will be reflected upon and integrated into the production of new images to be then interpreted. A new narrative will be produced, an alternative family album.

During this enquiry, how this created data is used, as a part of this process and how its interpretation influences further production is important. The interpretations become new knowledge in the artist’s free association, a deepening of the understanding. This broadens the artist’s capacity and inspires the production of what follows, conflict followed by some resolution and insight. These resulting interpretations involve the change in the thing being interpreted, making the original interpretation immediately out of date and informing the process in a forward motion. It is constructive and transformative without being right or wrong, the artist is changed, something new appears in the place of what was there before.

Every picture produced is then, a provisional state, often reflecting potential confusion, emotional investment and desire. At each stage it is open to negotiation of its own development and assessment, indeed as the process moves forward, re-assessments of previous works are integrated into this provisional, performative narrative. Backed by theory, these assessments will seek to validate events and offer some objective insight into how they are perceived.
This collaborative enterprise, (the photographs are interpreted by trained psychotherapists who do not know me and refer to the artwork presented as ‘sessions’). The written assessments (The Psychoanalytical Report, Appendix I) have both an affective as well as cognitive part and will depend more upon the empirical accuracy of interpretations based in theory. It is these joint narratives, of interlocking theories, which may correct distortions and create a revised set of narratives of personally transformative knowledge that will form, along with the images, a convincing and new form of photo biography.

4 Initial Aims and Outcomes

A fundamental aspect of psychodynamic work and aesthetic engagement can be described as a shared understanding of symbolic gestures, (often not verbalised, but ‘felt’). I am interested in the development of these communications through the production of self-portraits and their representation into language.
‘Narrative truths convince because of their capacity to evoke and structure experiences, to offer coherence where there is fragmentation, to articulate half understood meanings and to throw light on obscurity.’ (S. Frosh 1997 p.160)
I offer this project as a way of introducing the reader to the concept of pre-verbal communication and its importance in both aesthetic production and appreciation and how this is translated into language and documented, through the lens of analytic theory. Through production of these photographs, I will give external form to inner states. As transitional objects, they could be the representation of the first ‘not-me’ objects, a subjective part of the infant’s memories of earlier experiences, a bridge to our earliest experiences, one function of which is to recast subjective feeling states into more or less objective form as photographic objects. My concerns as an artist are with the ways in which the production of these photographs, their reception, analysis and relation to analytical theory, can be incorporated into an ongoing art practice.
Kenneth Wright has noted, ‘The form of some art corresponds truthfully to some felt pattern of our emotional life. In this sense every object with aesthetic import is potentially in tune with some elements of human feeling… every truthful work will be limited by its authors range of sensibilities, every truthful work will have its supporters because it resonates with them’ (2009 p.151)
Psychoanalysis can be described as recollecting the forgotten past, making ways of resurrecting and containing deep experience, a way of creating words from feelings, making the unconscious conscious, enriching meanings to events that may give meaning to the here and now. Perhaps this is the description of the artistic endeavour, to seek out these answers without the use of words. Subjective responses come from a place that pre-exists the use of language and it is this area of communication I am interested, in both the analytical encounter, the ‘session’, and in the unconscious communication of a self-portrait photograph.
On viewing the text alongside the images and looking at the transition and narrative, a higher level of abstraction is observed, patterns, themes, clusters of knowledge can be seen and are being documented. The analyst’s, as well as the artists ambivalence, projection and introjections, are also being observed; their counter transference in the process. The patient/artwork sits and observes the observer. Loss, distance, shame, aloneness, the look of the other; Oedipal conflicts, separation and attachment (see analysts’ reports) are revealed. These concepts of mirroring and attunement, the look of the ‘other’, very early childhood developmental processes are being highlighted in early interpretations.
This is a unique place where psychoanalytic theory can be drawn upon as a lens to observe images and texts, in doing so, providing a documentation of early infant experience.



FEB 2012 RD-1

‘The Psychodynamics of Preverbal Communication Explored through the Production of an Alternative Family Album.' Spencer Rowell

London Metropolitan University


Abstract

The proposition developed in this thesis is that through the production and psychoanalytical assessment of photographic images, a documented enquiry into early pre-verbal relationships can be connected to artistic expression. At its roots, the psychoanalytical experience is formulated as the discipline and practice of uncovering ‘latent meaning’ (Freud, S. 1900), of reaching below the surface of action and consciousness to reveal elements of unconscious life. As an artist, I am interested in the effectiveness of image making to initiate social change when the camera is used as a therapeutic tool.

 The research question that is asked is: can the documentation of image production and its psychoanalytical assessment, deepen our understanding of human functioning?

 My starting point is the production of self-portraits in conjunction with the study of psychoanalytical theory, mirroring the concept of psychodynamic theory and practice in the consulting room. My concerns as an artist are with the ways in which the production of these photographs, their reception, analysis and relation to analytical theory, can be incorporated into an ongoing art practice.

 The purpose of this article is to attempt a critical review of initial key literature and process so far achieved in the research of my proposal (March 2012 -January 2012). As indicative of the title I will review Kenneth Wright’s Mirroring and Attunement (2009), as a fundamental base on which I develop my research and Stephen Frosh’s For and Against Psychoanalysis (1997), as a way of accepting the challenges of utilising psychodynamic psychotherapy in the process of such research. Discussion of relevant theory will be followed by an overview of the methodology chosen, that of image production and its analytical assessment. This paper does not attempt to create a synthesis of the reading matter or offer any initial augments or analysis, merely offers the reader, and indeed myself an opportunity to review the field of study and its relation within the research question.
‘To search for historical truth is to live out the metaphor of analyst as archaeologist and to believe, along with Freud, that pieces of the past lie buried somewhere in the persons unconscious’ (Spence. D. 1987)

Kenneth Wright (2009) Mirroring and Attunement

I offer this text as a way of introducing the reader to the concept of pre-verbal communication and its importance in both aesthetic production and appreciation. Importance is put on language although we communicate on so many other levels unconsciously. It is the basis of this unconscious process that Wright talks of in his book. The literature is written from the stance of a practising psychodynamic psychotherapist, and Wright claims that aesthetic interaction and artistic expression is linked to this early mother infant interaction and continues through life, to underpin unconscious communication.

‘The form of some art corresponds truthfully to some felt pattern of our emotional life. In this sense every object with aesthetic import is potentially in tune with some elements of human feeling… every truthful work will be limited by its authors range of sensibilities, every truthful work will have its supporters because it resonates with them’ (2009 p.151)

Creative Production and Pre-verbal Communication

A fundamental aspect of psychodynamic work with patients is the shared understanding of symbolic gestures, (often not verbalised, but ‘felt’). I am interested in the development of these communications through the production of self-portraits and the ability of being able to symbolise these ‘feelings’. Where do they come from and what relationship do they have with artistic production?
Wright offers us an insight into the relationship between early pre-verbal relationships and the mother. He focuses on two aspects of functioning in the pre-verbal relationship provided by the mother, that of mirroring and attunement [1]. I draw these parallels with the relationship between client and analyst, as he feels his way into the analysands’ world and through identification with artwork, both giving back to the analysand/viewer his reflection of this world.
How do we describe this feeling of attunement or of being in touch? Can we draw these parallels with art production and appreciation?
Artistic creativity is the skill in accessing this rich imagination, a subjective state of finding form for these inner feelings. Perhaps this is a return to the development of the mothers’ skills in holding and attunement, or perhaps the adaption to a response to the lack of these skills.
In my research, the production of self portraits and their assessment by psychodynamic psychotherapists[2], I draw parallels with identification with this work and use this process as a simile of the mothers’ early identification with baby.
Can psychoanalysis be described as recollecting the forgotten past, making ways of resurrecting and containing deep experience? Or is it a way of creating words from feelings, making the unconscious conscious, enriching meanings to events that may give meaning to the here and now? Perhaps this is the description of the artistic endeavour, to seek out these answers without the use of words. Subjective responses come from a place that pre-exists the use of language and it is this area of communication I am interested in, both the analytical encounter (the ‘session’) and in the unconscious communication of a self-portrait photograph. Can these pictures be seen as portraying the shapes of pre-verbal imagery? The alternative family album produced will show a perceived substitute to the traditional document of family representation.

My research will enquire into three basic links, arguing that these make up the precursor to this artistic endeavour and of aesthetic appreciation.
· The adaptive attuning mother who reflects the forms of the subjective infant and during this process develops a language of shared symbolic gestures.

· The psychoanalyst who helps the patient into being, by fostering a new provision of attuning forms as a way of a replacement of that absence in this earlier relationship.

· The photographer, compensating for this deficiency in attunement, makes reflective forms of his own and gains an ability to exist and feel real through this process.

The roots of creativity start at the very start of life within the relationship with the adaptive mother. ‘The art object is a structure of non-verbal signals’ (Susanne Langer 1942). Both in the therapy session and during the production of photographs, there are the possibilities of existence in a new world of newly created reflections. This may also be seen as a way of reviving the process in the patient/artist that had been lost, failed to develop, or simply the artists’ need to enquire, reform, reconstruct.

From Mirroring and Attunement to Creative Expression

During this early and important stage, while the mother is so intently identified with the infant, the baby internalises the maternal form, and is experiencing an essential phase of early symbol-formation. This is the precursor for the linking of inner experience with external forms. It is at this pre-verbal level, where image-based forms, or symbols- are fashioned, at a time when the baby is differentiating himself from her and beginning the stage of separation and creating a sense of self.

Mirroring, in context of the emotional mirror, is where the baby sees his own face in the face of the mother. It marks out the mental space between mother and baby (Winnicott’s ‘Potential space’ 1971)

As well as the baby feeling an essential sense of connection, rapport, resonance and attunement (mother-infant communication), a direct line of conscious and unconscious communication between the two is created. This subjective engagement differs dramatically from words and is the precursor to language. Words can conjure up learned symbols but become a more objective line of communication.

Winnicott (1967a) proposed that the mothers face, with its rich variety of emotional responses, was a principle means through which the preverbal infant obtained emotional ‘feedback’ about himself. Being the child’s first mirror, what the infant sees in the mother’s expression is related to what she perceives as the infant’s ‘experience’.

In a therapeutic session and during any empathic engagement, the analysand tries to put inner experience into words, although this can be done in many other non-verbal ways. In attunement, the analyst attempts to imagine what is the inner state being experienced. In mirroring we, as the therapist, attempt to reflect a more detoxified version of the clients inner state. This identification provides an external view of the inner experience in the therapeutic space and could also be described as the aesthetic engagement, when one relates to artwork.

‘In attunement, a similar situation prevails. First the mother identifies with the baby’s experience (emotion), then recasts it in her own idiom and replays it to the baby. If the baby can experience the mothers enactment in a resonant way (ie corresponding to something in the infant), at that moment, baby and mother, like the artist and the audience, will be momentarily linked through the created (maternal) form’ (2009 p10)

Attunement is effectively outside the mothers’ sense of awareness. It is unconscious, spontaneous and intuitive. Stern (1985) suggests that the attuned mother ‘tracks the changing contour of the infant’s state and spontaneously enacts the baby’s feelings’. When I talk to a patient, he knows I am listening to him, if I create an image or symbol that resonates with him (in words); he will sense that I am in touch with him. This is the nature of art and its affect on the viewer. Responsive dialogue involves a match, or ‘fit.’ The proposed research is less about looking for mother, than the search for my own reflection of myself in mother.

A Sense of Self- Winnicott
‘To put things in this way begins to make the link with art more apparent; there is an emotional reaching out towards the subject, with perhaps the expectation of a response; a medium that allows itself to be transformed; and a ‘finding’ or creating within that medium of significant forms that reveal the subject to himself. Winnicott’s model readily transposes into the language of art’ (1967 p144)

The critical importance of Winnicott maternal responsiveness runs through all of his work, but whereas in early theories he stressed the physical, he has more recently focused on the non-verbal, adaptive communication, thus shifting from the relationship between mother and breast to non –verbal dialogue with the mother’s face. He likens the mother’s face to an emotional mirror and suggests that the infant sees, and begins to experience himself, through the visual medium of the mother’s responsive expressions. The real focus for Winnicott is this notion of ‘fit’, a vital ‘something’ in our own experience, a sense of self and of belonging.
‘The infant’s initial world is made of symbols, created concrete objects made from his pre-verbal structuring, as language appears he now faces another world, made half by other, restructuring his world in the fashion of language that carries other meanings. Does the artist hang on to this unique much earlier code of communication?’ (1967)

A Need For Reparation- Klein


Segal (1964) states that in Klein’s view, the creative act is driven by guilt or concern. She states that symbolism within the artwork is based more on absence and the loss of the object [3]. The rebuilding of these fragments of scattered objects is the creative act. It is this attempt to repair, to make reparation to the object, which becomes the artistic endeavour. Segal extends Klein’s theories into the study of aesthetic appreciation and writes that artistic creation is inextricably linked to the capacity to symbolise. Art involves representation, not necessarily of the external world but that of its interior, of inner experience: ‘the ‘Significant form’, where a viewer recognises an arrangement as an inevitable sequence.’ (1990 p.78)

In a generalised way, the Kleinian concept of creativity, and where it differs from a Winnicottian view, comes from a sense of absence, a replacement of what is missing. It reinstates the missing experience, and replaces the adaptive mother with a more perfect version. The Winicottian model of creative production is the development of mother–infant relations from a time when the mother and baby were merged as a single object. The assumption by Klein is that the mother-baby link is broken and is already in the position of the necessary reparation.


The Artistic Endeavour

Peter Fuller (1981) perceived the relevance of Winnicott in the work of the painter Natkin, and how his work relates to Winnicottian theories, the relation between preverbal communication and visual expression. Fuller suggested that the picture surface could be thought of as a face like structure, with which the artist communicates in ways that reach back to earlier experience with the mothers face. When the maternal response is out of the infants control the artist can modify the surface until it gives back to him the responses that he needs.

The artist operates in dialogue with the canvas and creates an illusionary and expressive surface through his technique. Eventually, ‘the canvas surface’, wrote Fuller, ‘becomes a surrogate for the good mother’s face’ and through this, it would seem, artistic creation has had a therapeutic function for the artist. Winnicott states that ‘if the maternal mirroring fails, then the infant looks around for other ways of getting something of himself back from the environment.’ (1967)

Wright says the artist, in this space, is poised on the edge of ‘no mother’ (the un-attuned mother), so hence has the compulsion to go on creating. From a certain perspective this artist’s transitional object [4] can be seen as an external form of internal memory or feelings. The baby retrieves an experience in the absence of the mother, touching and observing this object brings her back; the infant’s way of remembering her.
‘The panic of facing the blank canvas is a re-enactment of the primitive anxiety of the non-adaptive mother, the distracted mother. When the medium gives the artist what he needs, then he experiences joy and self-realisation’.
Finding This Voice

The therapist finds his voice with his client essentially as an artist does, creating a joint metaphorical and creative language. Ordinary language is essentially practical and concerned with external reality, it is object related and it needs considerable adaptation before it can be used to embody subjective phenomena like symbols and art.

Language, of course, offers us an important form of shared communication regarding external objects. However, non-verbal communications of symbols can offer us a much more profound insight into inner objects and feelings. It has the power to move, ‘to pierce’ (Barthes 1981) the inner self and that of others, our shared experience.

In the therapists room, language is the way of finding a common voice with that of the client; however a person’s true self lies deep in their pre-verbal world, the world the artist accesses. It is here that the person’s most important and often least communicable feelings, lay beyond the reach of ordinary language.

This core value of non-verbal communication convinces the client you are authentic, as with artwork, the showing of the true self is what’s authentic; this recognition is a place where the self is made. This joy of being recognised (by the artist/viewer) of being responded to (heard) is the confirmation that is so desired, a confirmation of self or the creation of the good enough or even perfect maternal object. From the Winnicottian perspective this is the adaptive mother giving what the child requires, as opposed to the Kleinian model where guilt and reparation are the motives for the production of the work,

Stephen Frosh For and Against Psychoanalysis. The Visualisation of Incoherence (The Difficulties Of Using Psychoanalysis In the Process of Research)


The Mystical Process
‘Psychoanalysis is born to the encounter between the hysterical woman and the positivist man of science’ (Moi 1989)
Can we ever get away from the controversy that psychoanalysis brings to the area of research? Does it have standing of true value, as in the status of science as Freud believed, or is its empirical effectiveness completely untrustworthy? If is has a cognitive and affective dimension, that may be seen as knowledge; so how can this be represented?

As voiced by Hans Essence (1996), perhaps psychotherapy and its associated milieu are just a series of tell-tales. But can these unconscious utterances, as I would prefer to call them, be used to build some kind of narrative of the human condition that may ultimately be used in the pursuit of both understanding and insight?
‘Psychoanalysis, in a very strict sense of the term, is a mystical experience. Mystical experiences can be best defined as follows; an emotional experience, which at the same time purports to be and is felt as being the acquisition of knowledge which is important, privileged and out of the ordinary’ (Gellner 1992)
Perhaps we need to move the debate about psychoanalytical research within the realm of aesthetics forward, rather than engaging in the same arguments that Gellner highlights above. The plague is here now, so perhaps we need to engage with it more as a process of discovery, as a way forward, to take us further down the road towards an alternative form of knowledge. In Gellner’s words, (1985), ‘A beast is at work; something that lies within us and systematically disrupts everything we think and do.’

To be a legitimate form of study, psychoanalytical enquiry has to be accountable, should show evidence, and be responsive to criticism. It is still a view of knowledge that is produced through human activity and underpinned by theory. But this ‘beast’, in the context of art production, is worthy of enquiry, as way of exploring this new semantic space. It is constructed, reconstructed, as in the to-and-fro made by patient and analyst in the therapeutic session: deeply complex, multilayered, heavily contextualised, obscure and performative in its knowledge.
‘To search for historical truth is to live out the metaphor of analyst as archaeologist and to believe, along with Freud, that pieces of the past lie buried somewhere in the persons unconscious’ (Spence. D. 1987)

The Limits of Language

‘Psychoanalysis, it might be argued, processes some of the most versatile explanatory concepts in intellectual history, so versatile that they are immune to appraisal by rational means’ (Frosh 1997)

It is essential for this enquiry to remain a critical vision and throw light on the process of new discoveries. The research question that is asked is, can the documentation of image production deepen our understanding of human functioning? And is the methodology consistent and honest? By keeping the enquiry as a study of pre-language, more universal insights can be made. The goal is not necessarily the truth, in the empirical sense of what really happened, but rather an understanding that the ‘truth’ includes a powerful affective and experiential component. As Flax (1981) states, ‘The past is lived through the transference [5], it is not mealy grasped intellectually’.

In the therapist’s session, successful outcomes are a form of linguistically mediated self-knowledge that places a client in a more controlled position over his life’s experiences and relationships. It uncovers a process as a system of tensions and reconciliations always on the move and in flux. The production and assessment of my photographs will uncover ‘truths’ or a series of ‘truths’ of the human condition. The to-and-fro between the analysing of and production of work in this intersubjective domain, will be reflected upon and integrated into the production of new images to be then interpreted. A new narrative will be produced, the alternative family album.

In the words of Frosh, ‘Although not always dependent on language and aimed at a consistent meeting of the unconscious, taking the significant residue and putting it into a rational form’. Is it in this residue, where creativity of subjectivity resides, that I can access an approach that is seen as having a claim to new knowledge?

Free Association Interpretation And Insight

Freud stated the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis is free association, that it is no more than a joint process of free association and transference, the later being the key mechanism.

MacMillan (1997) suggests this free association effectively creates its data, rather than recovers it and ‘cannot be used as any guide to the facts of human behaviour and mental life’. It is at best, ‘an unreliable guide to memory’, and as Grunbaum reminds us, ‘can be contaminated with the promptings of the analyst. All this makes it untrustworthy’.

During this enquiry, on how this created data is used, as a part of the process and how its interpretation influences further production is important. The interpretations become new information in the artist’s free association, a deepening of the understanding of the conflict, this broadens the artist’s capacity for psychic experience, artwork inspiring the production of what follows, conflict followed by some resolution and insight. The above quotes, of MacMillan and Grunbaum, I feel, fail to understand beyond Freud, as interpretations are now seen as combined truths of thousands of supervised client hours, the combined production of artists ‘truths and expression’. Interpretation is, in a broader sense, simply the understanding of any text, be it a film, poem or interview, the process of making the artist/patient aware of some aspect of his psychological process that he had been not previously conscious of.
‘Far from offering the analysand a new message, the interpretation should serve merely to enable the analysand to hear the message he is unconsciously addressing himself (…) The analysis plays on the ambiguity of the analysand speech, bringing out its multiple meanings’ (Evans 1996)
These resulting interpretations involve the change in the object being interpreted, making the original interpretation immediately out of date and informing the process in a forward motion. It is constructive and transformative without being right or wrong, the artist is changed, something new appears in the place of what was there before.

Interestingly, Frosh describes this as like taking a stills camera to photograph something, representing something that was there at that moment, ‘true’ in an approximate kind of way, but never quite to be the same again. ‘No interpretation can be the truth, but like language itself, performative’ (1997 p.122). This act of interpretation gives the subject the opportunity to seize the lost or hidden meanings and re-own them, restoring an identity between the subject and interpersonal intersubjective truths. This allows the emergence of unconscious fantasies out of which meaningful insight might become known, and in doing so, improving that flow to free associations.

Every picture produced is then, a provisional state, often reflecting potential confusion, emotional investment, and desire. At each stage it is open to negotiation of its own development and assessment; indeed as the process moves forward, re-assessments of previous works are integrated into this provisional, performative narrative. Backed by theory, these assessments will seek to validate events and offer some objectivity of how they are perceived. Psychoanalysis works with phantasy, with the internalised version of the world through which individuals communicate and relate to shared external events. There are no true or false statements; each reading is intriguing and unique and its understanding will be able to be taken to the next engagement.

This collaborative enterprise, (the photographs are interpreted by trained psychotherapists who do not know me and refer to the artwork presented as sessions), and the written assessments (The Psychoanalytical Report) have both an affective (countertransferential) [6] as well as cognitive (theoretical) part and will depend more upon the empirical accuracy of interpretations based in theory. It is these joint narratives, of interlocked theories, which may correct distortions and create a revised set of narratives of personally transformative knowledge that will form, along with the images, a convincing and new photographic biography.

Provisional Transitional Truths
‘Narrative truths convince because of their capacity to evoke and structure experiences, to offer coherence where there is fragmentation, to articulate half understood meanings and to throw light on obscurity.’ (Frosh 1997)
As in any assessment, these psychological states are often characterised by a kind of alienation, where the subject is separated from objects, experiencing it as i an object split from one’s own meanings, wishes and desires. As individual images, they represent a temporary transitional stage showing these splits. As a series, they become a narrative of theoretical coherence, inner consistency and have a narrative intelligibility.

What if everything is a fairy story? Does this mean that the narrative holds no potency? The alternative family album is a process of unravelling those things that are not as they seem, into a new comprehension, knowledge and understanding of the human condition, underpinned by established theory and extensive supervision. Thus the intense experience of psychotherapy as research, the searching for, finding or staving off of something new, on the journey to insight as a road to personal change. It is the same route towards that of all human understanding.

‘Phantasy is not merely an escape from reality, but a constant and unavoidable accompaniment of real experiences, (we are) constantly interacting with them’ Segal 19

Methodology
Fig. 1 ‘Session 2’

The Psychoanalytical Report

Session 2 Shame (Fig. 1)

This seems to be a display of self-hatred but there also seems to be a kind of pleasure in looking at oneself at a bodily extreme, in a distressed state. And subsequently having someone else looking in at this anti-holy figure. I guess you might want to see me as an observer react perhaps joining you, as a disciple, opening up too, getting me to spill my guts. But perhaps you don’t want me to join you at all. Maybe you want to be left alone.

It also struck me that this religious image is a bombardment. A triptych, religious-looking but based on a very non-sacred, commonplace piece of furniture. The mirror seems pretty unique. I don’t think this is just a mirror but maybe a 1930-1950s dressing table, where a woman made themselves up, brushing hair, perfuming, covering up their blemishes, smells of sweat and whatever else. But instead of privately getting ready, this is a very public undressing with us as an audience. This is quite the opposite of making up: making yourself throw up. Puking, stinking. Giving up civilised pictures of a pretty albeit bleak beach, giving up the holding in, the hiding, the covering up.

Perhaps this is a hatred of a big bit of yourself: a feminine vain, conservative, civilised part of you who doesn’t want to exhibit. This is perhaps a reaction against the part of you who can’t exhibit these personal images, who can’t stand it, who wants to cover up, make the images look nice. A part of you who feels so much shame in all of this exhibiting in such a way.

Maybe this is also struggle between two (or three?) extreme sides of yourself, but which has turned into a war in a wartime/post wartime dressing table. Vomiting versus the other extreme of covering your disgusting bits up. In some way I guess, and this whole thing is a guess, you are revolting against the vain, shamed side of yourself. But this reaction reflects your uncertainty about doing. Crucially I think that this picture (and presumably what is to come) threatens your project - by getting rid of us as observers. A strong part of you wants us all to look away and stop looking. I suppose you want to be rid of all the onlookers, who are clearly, as a photographer, your life, your bread and butter. Your observers, us, are what you are really throwing up.

And I think you are especially unsure about this project. It is dangerous. There is an interesting uncertainty of boundaries here. You are revealing too much of yourself, without any makeup or perfume to hide behind. You don’t want to be ‘analysed’ like this (by finding particularly psychoanalytical observers), or if you do, only as in an enjoyment at your own discomfort.

Do you trust that we will stay with you? I don’t think you do trust we will stay, and I think a very ancient part of you doesn’t want us to stay with you. DB 24/09/11


Conclusion, Initial Aims and Outcomes

Individual experiences are of course significant to the creator, but so often with creative work, there is a ‘fit’ or an unconscious ‘knowing’ with that of the work and the viewer; shared pre-verbal experiences, shared attunement. If a portrait is based on this structure of non-verbal presentation of symbols, the ability of the ‘fit’ between mother and child, the creative endeavour can provide fertile material. If this creative material is accessed, this pre-verbal symbol formation can be assessed and used to offer an insight into our early life experiences. Winnicott realised this integration of the objective and subjective view as an important feature of the creation of symbols: he spoke of it as ‘primary creativity, a realm of illusion and a place of transitional objects from a much earlier stage of the child’s omnipotence.’

Perhaps this work, the image of a surrogate mother, creates a more perfect object and contains more of the artist-self than the artist can communicate verbally. Through its formation, refining and experimentation, the reflections one would have preferred begin to emerge. A new maternal extension of self.

It is important to stress the importance of these photographic representations’ importance of the shared experience, rather than simply becoming a vehicle for self-examination, self-analytical exorcism and an individual journey of self-awareness. Winnicott saw this symbol communication as the primary form of communication in us all, the preverbal world being the foundation in the formation of self and of symbolic representation. These primitive communications are based on shared preverbal symbols and communicated non-verbally and not intellectually via words. Through symbols, the artist gives a voice to the inarticulate to communicate to the viewer. On one hand we raid the inarticulate and on the other wait for the adaptive mother to bring the form of the feeling to us. Like trying to recapture a lost memory, we will hope and wait to have it released; producing what Winnicott might call our transitional objects.

Through production of these photographs, I will bring external form from inner states. These transitional objects could be the representation of the first ‘not-me’ objects, a subjective part of the infant’s memories of earlier experiences, a bridge to our earliest experiences, the function of which is to recast subjective feeling states into more or less objective form as photographic objects.


References


Barthes, R. (1981) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

Daniel N. Stern, (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant

Ernest Gellner, E. (1992) Postmodernism, Reason and Religion

Freud, S. (1900) The Interpretation of Dreams

Frosh, S. (1997) For and Against Psychoanalysis

Fuller, P. (1981) Art and Psychoanalysis

Hans Küng (1996) Christianity: Essence, History, Future

Kenneth Wright (2009) Mirroring and Attunement Routledge

Segal, H. (1964) Introduction to the Work of Melanie Klein

Segal, H. (1990) Dream, Phantasy, and Art

Winnicott D. W. (1967) Mirror-Role of Mother and Family in Child Development

Winnicott D. W. (1971) Playing and Reality


[1] Both mirroring and attunement are pre-verbal forms of communication based on affective affirmation. Mirroring is confined to mothers facial expressions and is seen as a single modality (vision). Attunement generates a variety of forms across many forms of modalities. Together providing a range of symbolic communication of the infant’s inner state.

[2] Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a form of depth psychology, the primary focus of which is to reveal the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension.

[3] Objects refer to internalised images in the unconscious. Objects can also be parts of a person, objects may be both real or things in one's inner world (one's internalised image of others)

[4] A comfort object, an item used to provide psychological comfort.

[5] Transference is a phenomenon in psychoanalysis characterised by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood.

[6] Countertransference is defined as redirection of a therapist's feelings toward a patient, or more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a patient/the work.



VERSION 2 AUGUST 2011

‘The Psychodynamics of Preverbal Communication explored through the production of an Alternative Family Album.'


Does psychoanalysis recollect the forgotten past, making ways of resurrecting and containing deep experience? Or does it create words from feelings, making the unconscious conscious, enriching meanings to events that may give meaning to the here and now? Or does this perhaps describe the artistic endeavour, the seeking out of these answers through continued development of these questions.


Spencer Rowell. PhD Fine Art Photography, 2013


Abstract
The proposition developed in this thesis is that an insight into the relationship between early pre-verbal relationships is connected to artistic expression. The enquiry will be expressed through the metaphor of the family album, (the way the past is often recollected and how it is communicated photographically) does the production of an alternative family change the way that we relate to our personal past?

 My starting point is the production of self-portraits in conjunction with personal therapy and study of psychoanalytical theory, mirroring the concept of psychodynamic theory and practice in the consulting room. I draw these parallels with the relationship between client and analyst, as he feels his way into the patients’ world through identification and the artwork, both giving back to the patient/viewer his reflection of this world. The concerns as an artist are with the ways in which the production of these photographs, their relation to ideas of personal memory of the past and their reception can be incorporated in an art practice.

My research will enquire as to the roots of creative expression; do they begin at the very start of life within the relationship with the adaptive mother? The exploration into three basic links, arguing that these are the precursor to this artistic endeavour, in both production of art and of art appreciation.


· The adaptive attuning mother who reflects the forms of the subjective infant and during this process develops a language of shared symbolic gestures.


· The psychoanalyst who helps the patient into being, by fostering a new provision of attuning, as a way of a replacement of that early lack in that earlier relationship.


· The photographer, compensating for this deficiency in attunement, makes reflective forms of his own and gains an ability to exist and feel real through this process.


The emphasis of this thesis is to explore ways to elucidate my own practice as an artist and to offer a commentary on its relationship with the past, which have been central to its development of and representation of the family album. Finally I look at how the production of the work and its appraisal has impacted on the process of change.



CHAPTER SYNOPSIS

Introduction.
Background to Research Project.
The Concerned Photographer
A Families history and its documentation
Photographic expression
An alternative Family Album

Chapter One.
Field of Study
The function of photography as family documentation
The Aesthetics of Photography
Photography and Psychoanalysis

Chapter Two.
Communication
Non-verbal processes: Early mother –infant relations
Communication- Symbols and Metaphors
Concepts of Memory: Remembering and forgetting
Defenses mechanisms



Chapter Three.
Introduction to psychoanalytical theory and artistic Endeavour
Mirroring & Attunement
Holding & Containment
True and False self
Projective Identification
Paranoid-Schizoid to Depressive Position and Reparation
Death drive
The transitional space and transitional Objects

Chapter Four.
Expression the photographer’s unconscious representation, a new way of photographs communicating. Analytical viewing and assessment
Analytical Observations and Assessment
Assessment of individual photographs
Assessment of collection

Chapter Five.
Outcomes
The Therapy Session and Artistic Engagement
Therapeutic change
The legacy of Jo Spence.

Conclusion to Research Project
Plates
Bibliography
Glossary of Terms
Notes and appendices








VERSION ONE MARCH 2011

'The psychodynamics of photographic communication explored through the production of an alternative family album'.

Spencer Rowell. Proposed Theses for London Metropolitan University
PhD Photography, Fine Art 2013 ver_1


Contents:

Abstract

Introduction to Research Project
1. The Concerned Photographer
2. A Family history and its documentation.
3. Childhood experiences
4. Use of practice.
Conclusions.
Bibliography


Chapter One. Introduction to background and research.
Introduction
1. The function of photography as family documentation
2. Recent Discussions on Photography.
3. The family album.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.


Chapter Two. Communication in relation to the repressed.
Introduction.
1. Psychodynamics of Communication.
2. Concepts of Memory: Analogies and Metaphors. Remembering and forgetting
3. Changes in Concepts of Communication
4. Defenses of memory representation.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.


Chapter Three. Psychodynamics of viewing and the photographer’s unconscious representation.
Introduction
1. The transitional space
2. Photographs never lie
3. Therapeutic change
4. The legacy of Jo Spence.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.


Chapter Four. A new way of photographs communicating
Introduction.
1. A Description of the work
2. What does it say? Image reports
3. Psychoanalytical Observations.
Conclusion.

Bibliography.

Aims and Outcomes

Conclusions to Research Project
Appendix. Photographs,