Self-Portrait as Phantastic Object

Much of psychoanalytic thinking has, as its starting point, the infantile sense of wishful thinking; omnipotence visualised through the medium of play as a way to reveal the relative awareness of the truths of experience. Freud speaks of this process in terms of a compromise, where ones capacities to express our place in the world are mediated, via language, to a sense of reality. This could also be said of art production, as generally the artist knows what is real and conscious, however during this state of production, there outcome can be seen initially as perhaps having a sense of unrealistic wishful thinking.

‘As people grow up, then, they cease to play, and seem to give up the yield of pleasure which they gained from playing. But whoever understands the human mind knows that hardly anything is harder for a man than to give up pleasure, which he has once experienced. Actually, we can never give anything up; we only exchange one thing for another. What appears to be a renunciation is really the formation of a substitute or surrogate. In the same way, the growing child, when he stops playing, gives up nothing but the link with real objects; instead of playing, he now phantasies. He builds castles in the air and create what are called daydreams. I believe that most people construct phantasies at times in their lives. This is a fact which has been long been overlooked and whose importance has therefore not been sufficiently appreciated.’ (Freud 1908, p.144)

This thesis sets out to explore whether psychoanalytic thinking, based on interpretations of photography, expressed via language, can illuminate pre-verbal expression through the production of self-portraits.

Since standard psychoanalytic thinking significantly differs from other ways of the understanding of human psychology, (Tukett and Taffler 2007 p.389), it is suggested that this methodology may have a unique contribution to make to this area of research. The author suggests that with this psychoanalytic approach, language from interpretations can act as an interface between the image representation and affective knowledge; that it can also explain aspects unconscious functioning around art production, its realisation and appreciation.

I will introduce new ways of seeking to understand images psychoanalytically; and specifically within the realm of the self-portrait. A strength of this argument put forward is that it relies on widely accepted clinical thinking about the workings of the unconscious mind in clinical work; in both that of the artist and the viewer in this new dynamic.  It will examine the nature of unconscious phantasy and psychic reality, the relationship between these states of mind - the expression of the internal world of the artist and of the reader, the understanding of those internal worlds and how they interrelate. It has become an increasing area of interest, as the project has progressed, of the role of the viewers and interpretors in this process - the importance of an increasing understanding of this new intersubjective dynamic. The thesis will examine their role in detail, paralleling the relationship of the therapist/client in a therapeutic engagement, to enquire about the notion of what might be called a ‘blank screen’.

I will describe the artefacts in the context of them being ‘Phantastic Objects’, (coined by Tukkett and Taffler, 2003) and as such are the objects used in this process in an attempt to achieve a sense of perceived reality, derived from two psychoanalytical concepts. Object, which is used in the sense as in philosophy; as a mental representation, or a symbol of something that is not the thing in itself. This could also represent a part object or combination of internalised relationships. And the word Phantasy, as Freud speaks of in his quote above, as an imaginary scene in which the inventor represents the protagonist in the process of having latent (unconscious) content or wishes, fulfilled. (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973, p.314)

This project, as indeed therapy can be described as, is a documentation of the developmental struggle between the ‘reality principle’ and the ‘pleasure principle’. In the therapeutic engagement much is given to this interplay, the conflict between these two basic principles. The production of the photographs represent a negotiation of the resolution of (or partial resolution of) the conflicts of these two states of mind into which, in Freud’s words, ‘a new principle of mental functioning was thus introduced’ so that ‘what was presented in the mind was no longer what was agreeable, but what was real, even if it happened to be disagreeable’ Freud 1911, p219.

‘At the heart of the psychoanalytic understanding of reality is the assumption that individuals are always in some degree of unconscious conflict: in fact, we develop a sense of mature reality by finding an individual way to accommodate the ongoing and potentially creative conflict between our wishes and our real opportunities,’

Freud 1911, p.399

This series of self-portraits as Phantastic Objects, analysed, allows the artists deepest desires to be fulfilled. The artist in a state of infantile omnipotence, where the visualisation of conflicts and the inevitable display of antagonism between these two states that are reflected upon in the interpretations, offers insight and affective knowledge of internal worlds.

Spencer Rowell 2012

Self-appraisal of presentation made at the AMD/ASD PhD Student Conference 14th June 2012.

14th June 2012.

I was nervous, feeling I was trying to deliver too much information. The more successful presentations, in my view, were more simple and tried to keep focus on the research question and methodology. Generally I felt that I was having a difficulty defending my presentation. This was due to the fact that I am still unsure of my question and how it will add to future knowledge. Quite a drawback!

However, having talked to Stuart Evens and Nick after the presentation, I was led to believe that this was not so unusual and they seemed quite positive, Stuart explaining that the presentation was interesting, having lots of ‘bits’ that needed simplifying and that I just need to find the ‘glue’ and Nick suggesting that the outcome could be of value to other therapists working in the area of photo-therapy.

These where the questions posed in my presentation:

Research Question           

Can the documentation of image production through the use of the camera as a therapeutic tool, deepen our understanding of human functioning? By paralleling the therapeutic engagement in the consulting room, can it create a new narrative, its process documented through continued assessment and adaptation?

Research Method

Mixed. The reason for combining both quantitative and qualitative data, is to better understand this research problem by converging both quantitative images (broad theoretical trends) and qualitative data (detailed views), as with the language emerging from the images.

(John Creswell, Design research, 2009 p.135)

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. Throughout this 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.

Methodology

To achieve a higher level of abstraction, where patterns, themes and clusters of knowledge can be seen and documented. Psychoanalytic theory is used as a lens, through which to observe this data of both image and text. New images create interpretations which in turn creates a new narrative.

Aims and Outcomes

Through production of these photographs, I will give external form to inner states. My concern 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 on-going art practice.

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 art appreciation, how this is translated into language and documented.

My Assessment

To work towards the “making of an original and significant contribution to knowledge and understanding in the relevant field of study as judged by independent experts applying accepted contemporary international standards”.

And it is not:

"The degree is not awarded as an expression of the aesthetic value, social worth or cultural significance of particular achievements, i.e. for high professional competence and peer recognition alone." (Biggs, 2000).

And one of the statements made about it in the University of Queensland Doctor of Philosophy Handbook (page 1) reads:

“The doctoral thesis provides evidence of a contribution to knowledge with a level of originality consistent with 3-4 years of full-time study and supervised research training”.

A Few Key Questions

I would like to clarify the actual research question and whether its practice based or practice led. Why my methodology and not another, justify my methods? The contribution to knowledge, who takes this research on? What sorts of contribution are typically made in dissertations?

It can be seen as:

A re-contextualization of an existing technique, providing language, to gain awareness from content (images), as opposed to providing language and knowledge from a therapeutic engagement. Language that can be established as offering insight and new knowledge. The image offers affective meaning and affective communication from the artist.

Implementation of theoretical principle: showing how it can be applied in practice; making a physical representation of established psychoanalytical theories.

Empirically based (or language based) characterisation of a phenomenon of interest (therapeutic value of photographic production)

Well-founded critique of existing theory or evidence (e.g. correlating the results of a number of existing studies to show patterns, omissions or etc.)

'Art-practice-led' or 'Art-practice-based'

If a creative artifact is the basis of the contribution to knowledge, the research is practice-based. If the research leads primarily to new understandings about practice, it is practice-led.

"Research which is initiated in practice, where questions, problems, challenges are identified and formed by the needs of practice and practitioners; and, secondly,

‘That the research strategy is carried out through practice, using predominantly methodologies and specific methods familiar to us as practitioners in the visual arts and design." (CRIAD, 2000).

My Art-practice involve the making of artwork (Practice based), and is a major part of the research process. Information is derived from the images (Practice led). This process is documented, however, in context of a narrative produced (the image informs the next) this part can be seen as a Practice-led project.

Practice-based Research is an original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice. It includes artefacts in the form of photographic images, whilst the significance and context of the claims are described in words. A full understanding can only be obtained with direct reference to those outcomes. These outcomes from the research process will be included in the submission for examination and the claim for an original contribution to the field are held to be demonstrated through the original creative work.

The outcomes and primary focus of the research is not to advance knowledge about practice, or to advance knowledge within practice. So I conclude this is not a practice –led thesis.

Notes
Is everything practice led? May involve practice. The project will be enhanced and modified. The camera is used as a research tool. Practice based ... Theory led project. Practice informed…. Informed by knowledge of practice. Modify, practice based to theory led Practice feeds work Meaning comes from theory.

Conclusion (suggested in the form of an 'elevator pitch')

My research is a combination of my interest in the self-portrait photography and psychotherapy. How a lens-based artist might exhibit their internal world externally through the combination of photographic self-portraits and their interpretation, how this can be documented over time, thus paralleling the process in psychoanalysis.

Through collaboration with The Guild, I produce self-portraits that area interpreted as sessions, by two analysts, once monthly over two years. With these interpretations the images become represented as language. The documentation of this process (1)as individual encounters and 2) a narrative over time) is described through the lens of psychoanalytical theory.

Spencer Rowell 2012

Externalise Me, Internalise You.

Projection, Identification, Projective Identification. Edited by J. Sandler (1988)

As much as psychoanalysis is concerned with the interaction between the outer world and its relationship with an inner world (how we take in and make sense of external events and how we put our inner thoughts and understandings back out into the outer world), I am intrigued how this parallels photographic self-portraiture along with its assessment as a form of internal self-expression. This project and the production of self-portraits and their assessment offers an opportunity to build aspects of the self and observe how they relate to external objects from a more objective viewpoint.

Is this work simply a form of self-imposed fragmentation followed by reparation, or through the temporary loss of inner self, diffusion and re-identity? Do I display my images, because of my incapacity to differentiate subject (the photograph) and object (me), from reality (the print) and phantasy of the image, (what it is about?). Through what process do I, as the artist, discard unwanted parts of myself, in the form of photographs, and value taking in, in the form of language, interpretations. Also, what of the interpreter in this mêlée? In losing my state of independence, through dependence on the analysts’ responding to my work, how do I, in phantasy, transmit my thoughts into their minds; do they contain those thoughts and return them to me? As I ponder these reflections of theirs’ and I offer more images that in turn, have potential of more discoveries and awareness to my inner world, does an alternative picture emerge, a narrative of sorts, in me and also perhaps, a narrative of them?

The Guild becomes the container and the frame, where the image is scrutinised by the examiners. In an attempt to understand the complexities of the interactions between these internalisations and externalisations and the subsequent modification of the sequence of images produced, will the documentation and the final exhibition show by means of visual representation and use of text, a more accurate image of internal representation?

A sequence of these images over time offer perhaps, more of an opportunity for reflection, but how is this image really me, you may ask? Self-portrait photography as a method of communication can of course be the act of making more concrete that experience of our internal world, a way of putting undigested bit-parts of experience and other inner experiences into an object, the print to be viewed. Self-portrait photography can display that interchange of self and non-self, the act of creation, in picking up bits that are in existence and re-forming them into something original, a form of photographic communication, used as a way of getting these experiences understood and along with there interpretations, to have them returned in a more manageable and different form, that of language. Does this project give me the opportunity to discard affect into an ‘other’? Externalise it perhaps temporarily, and once outside of self, give me the capacity to think and reflect, does it becoming a de-toxifying process? The process of documenting this Projective-Introjective dance, the former as an image sent to The Guild, then re-introjected in the form of language as it returned from The Guild, along with the assessors projections could be one way.

Projection and Introjection are seen as representing opposite sides of the same coin, an unconscious form of communication and the basis of art appreciation and interpretation.  In this context I will suggest that Projection and Introjection, used in this mature way, is more than simply an opportunity to appreciate and gain another level of understanding, between the artist and the photograph, the photograph and the assessor, an opportunity to understand something of the viewer.

Projection and Introjection is the process by which we can describe interactions between the inner (including intra-relativeness) and outer worlds of artist and viewer, a place where they merge and interrelate. This communication of aspects of self is ‘a rapid oscillation of projection and introjections’, says Money-Kyrle (1988), ‘unconsciously acquiring affective experience’. This process has its roots in early infant/mother relations, the infant cannot say how he feels, he simply makes his mother experience the same feeling. This communication is seen as them connecting in a deep and unconscious way, the mother will react that will facilitate the infant's psychic growth; the same happens in the therapeutic setting between analyst and analysand. This project seeks to engage with the viewer in a similar way, to engage on this unconscious level through Projection and Introjection.

Projection takes aspects of one's internal world and puts them onto external subjects; an unconscious process of excretion and expulsion. In this project, we include the reverse enactment; where the internal world of the viewer is incorporated into the image being viewed, it is projected also. It is this 'output' from the viewers’ internal world into the report, the viewers’ own projections, which can be seen as 'input' into the final assessment. Projection and Introjection is an intercommunicative process of shared understanding, it is a creative interplay of shared experience.

The process as it occurs in child development can be dissected into three phases (Ogden, 1982):

1) The projector rids himself of unwanted bits;

2) Deposits them into (not just onto) the receiver;

3) Recovers a modified version of his projected bits.

Without this third phase, the process is not therapeutic or helpful to the projector.

The above therapeutic process parallels that which is undertaken by this project:

1) Where the photographer disposes into an image un-resolved, un-differentiated parts of his pre-verbal past;

2) These messages are placed via a print ‘into’ The Guild;

3) The artist recovers a modified version in the form of language.

From this third phase the photographer seeks more awareness from subsequent portraits.

So projection and introjection are a related process, the communication of relationships between internal objects and with that of the outside world and vice versa. It regulates the individual’s interaction with the outside world and the observations of which in the therapeutic situation, will build a picture of that internal space. In both analysis and in the viewers’ interpretation of my work, this is done by the process of formulating internal boundaries, it involves creating an image of self, of that self’s relationships and the interaction between the two. When confronted by this image, the viewer often is in an initial state of confusion; an unconscious personal representation is called for. A boundary is set; ‘this is I’ and ‘that is he’. This is a disidentification process, where the ego says, ‘I distinguish between self and object, I will create a boundary’. (Sandler, J. 1988) pxx. By instigating the notion of play alongside often intense concentration, the viewers’ boundaries become merged and temporally suspended with the image. Here the viewer brings life experience to the engagement, there is a sense of the artist analysing the viewer. This process is what Sandler calls ‘sorting out’, where ‘aspects of the object–representation are incorporated into the self-representation and vice-versa.’ (1988) p26. This process is the basis for empathy in the consulting room.

To look at Projection in its broadest terms we see it, along with Introjection, as an organizing structure, in constant interplay across shared boundaries. A bringing together of un-differentiated differences, it is the way the artist sees the world and that of how the viewer perceives the same world, that together they have the capacity to bring them together and ask questions. Through this process we describe the world in subjective terms, by testing, inherently organising an continually unconsciously reflecting on the individuals internal world. Projection without Introjection would be a pointless affair, no comparison, no feedback, even in phantasy. Creativity is inhabitating these cross borders, it is the art of playing in a combined experience, The creative development comes from the constant interplay of Projective and Introjective structures in this shared environment.

But in context of the analysts’ interpretation of these photographic images, it is the reaching beneath the surface into what is the subterranean world of the artist in combination with the viewer, that is this unconscious process. The ‘sorting out’ from which we want to gain knowledge of the internal space, this is the shared world of artist and viewer, it is this externalisation of the work and expectations of a response that could be described as creative interaction. As viewers, don’t we go to art galleries to give and to receive? The viewers experiences coupled with the ideas of the artist (often misunderstood, confused expressions) are locked in an unconscious conversation, in phantasy, enabling union and a level of understanding, this is a re-enactment of a pre-verbal, or early infant experience.

The artwork also acts as a temporary container, where this lack of initial understanding is held, my need to return to the artwork for further understanding, or to relate to it as being part of a sequence and through the reverie of the engagement with the assessments, gain access to a direct descendant of inner worlds, a pre-verbal state that I am attempting to disentangle. One role of the analyst is to simply hold on to the therapeutic content while the patient process it, a temporary container, enabling the client to maintain an ability to think.

The viewing of the work is a difficult process for the analysts’, it involves them getting caught up in the affectual nature of object relations. Many of the images will not ‘pierce’, to use Barthes term, they will dissolve, counter, overlap and often create ambivalence of the viewers’ experience of communication. Though this play and interaction, I am asking them to see something; a representation of my internal world and in it, how theirs intertwines with it.

The viewer therefore creates and crosses these boundaries set up by the artist and through internalisation and externalisation responds to the work. Projection and Introjection must be seen as a developmental and in a differentiating perspective on image engagement; it is this concept that is behind creative engagement.

‘The interplay of introjective and projective mechanisms weaves a pattern of relatedness’s to the world of objects and provides the fabric out of which the individual fashions his own self image’ … ‘Out of this interplay also develops his capacity to relate to and identify with the objects in his environment.’’ (Sandler, J. 1988) p35

Through interpretation, and over time however, as in therapy, from a combined narrative, awareness emerges. It is essential to acknowledge the importance of the observers’ projections in the formulation of conclusions for this project as it being of a shared experience. Art appreciation requires projection.

Spencer Rowell 2012

Trueprint 1978

Oedipal Struggles Expressed Through the Viewing of Larry Sultan

A Psychological investigation of the work of Larry Sultan ‘Pictures from Home’ (1982-92)

Larry Sultan, in an interview with Sheryl Conkelton (Flintridge Foundation Awards for Visual Arts 1999/2000) said,

‘When I was working on ‘Pictures from Home’, my parents’ voices – their stories as well as their arguments with my version of our shared history – were crucial to the book. They called into question the documentary truth the pictures seemed to carry. I wanted to subvert the sentimental home movies and snapshots with my more contentious images of suburban daily life, but at the same time I wished to subvert my images with my parents’ insights into my point of view’.

The family album is a visual record, but also a volume of inter-relational family experiences, generally constructed and presented as historical truth; a picture of, certainly to their owners, of both visual and emotional reality. This document bears witness to our connectedness with family, humanity and ourselves; for most of us it is often the only proof of our existence. It tells the viewer what there is and how it was, our own inventory of life. It creates a link with both the past and the future and eventually, it provides the one and only link between ‘us’ and ‘there’ or ‘them’ and ‘then’. Cameras go with family life; they escort us around so that we can prove that we where really here at all. A family’s photographic album is generally about us now, but becomes a historic document of the extended family and often, is all that remains of it. It seems you cannot claim to have seen anything, been anywhere or ‘belonged’ unless you have photographed it. It proves we had relationships.

The family album has its truths of course, but the justification that it show how it really was, is not so clear. It is a worthy document, however it also has a role as a defence against our anxieties. Family albums actively promote nostalgia; one could argue that photography, far from documenting the truth, succeeds more in hiding it, than it does the revealing of it. Larry Sultan states,

‘Photography is there to construct the idea of us as a great family and we go on vacations and take these pictures and then we look at them later and we say, ‘Isn’t this a great family?’ So photography is instrumental in creating family not only as a memento, a souvenir, but also a kind of mythology.’  

I would like to discuss that photographer Larry Sultan and his series of images that he published in 1992, ‘Pictures from Home’ are his family photographs of his truth, outside the mythology of family. I attempt to disclose more about his relationship with his parents, to read into the images something of his inner world that initially the images don’t show to us. Sultan acknowledges that he is producing a document of family images from his point of view and that he shows, through them, how he gains awareness of the ‘mythology’ of the family document. We see also his need to ‘subvert [his] images with [his] parents’ insights into [his] point of view’.

Sultan was very aware of his involvement, of the fact that he was colluding and appearing symbolically, and not literally, in the pictures in which he produces. In his words, the images became a portrait of ‘us’. He goes on to say,

‘The daily practice of a photographer is to be distanced, to have a little bit of room between what you’re doing and how you see, what you look at. For me the biggest surprise was that the distance I thought I needed as a photographer slipped. It wasn’t about ‘these’ people it was about ‘us’.’

The words of Larry Sultan describing his production of this series of images photographed for a decade up to 1992 for me show so strongly, and certainly when viewed through the lens of psychoanalytical theory, an exhibition of a son attempting to force himself into the family portrait. This is his Oedipal struggle visualised through photography. Not the first attempt, one could imagine, but with photography, he shows us his need to gain insight into his Oedipal dilemma. Larry Sultan again,

‘What drives me to continue this work is difficult to name. It has more to do with love than with sociology. With being a subject in the drama rather than a witness, and in the odd and jumbled process of working, everything shifts: the boundaries blur, my distance slips, the arrogance and illusion of immunity falters. I wake up on the middle of the night, stunned and anguished. These are my parents. From that simple fact, everything follows.’

Although he doesn’t appear in these images, his presence is felt. What we see is the son who was left out, who still remains outside, beyond the dyad of the overbearing father who disallows access to his protected mother. In Merriah Lambs essay on this series of pictures, entitled ‘Reconstructing family: Larry Sultan’s pictures from home’, provides an insight into the use of the camera to enquire into family dynamics and as the title suggests, a rebuilding of the family unit.

‘Sultan understands the camera’s function as the family’s primary instrument of self-knowledge and self-representation by which family memory perpetuates, using it to re-examine family, but also undermining any claim that photographs and their arrangements are necessarily an accurate form of documentation of family life’.

She goes on to say,

‘Pictures from home is the sons account, a representation of the trawling through of these memories and what we see is quite disturbing. Through the production of the family album, we want to idolised the image of our world and our place within it and more importantly our relationships throughout our existence’.

The first thing to note is that the traditional role of the family albums production is reversed here. The son photographs the parents. The story will be different, the social norm is for the parents to display their interpretation of history, their sense of power, edited and presented, to be used as an aid memoir but also it is the story of the compilers of this story, to corroborate one persons recollection. Sultan has an opportunity here, to engage with this album dynamic once again, but this time on his terms. On the surface, he gives his sitters a voice, literally and aesthetically, but the most present person is the photographer; in these portraits, he makes up his own experience of the events.

I would like to bring an Oedipal interpretation to these images, in association with a phantasy of my view of what Sultan is saying. There is a physical space he occupies in these pictures, between his parents; it is of an elevated status, his size and strength is noticed, there is an achievement of some kind. Sigmund Freud introduced the concept of the Oedipal Struggle in his ‘Interpretation of Dreams’, (1899). It is his theory of relationships, gender assignment and sexuality. Although Freud believed this was a stage of psychosexual development to be negotiated during the Phallic stage (3-6), the psychoanalyst, Melanie Klein, would place this stage at much earlier, as early as the oral stage (aged 1). What is seen, in the pictures, is a renegotiated Oedipal struggle, re-visited perhaps because of its failed resolution in early age or simply an illustration of his recollection of that experience; a photographic symbol of the echo from an earlier experiences of a difficult phase of development. Can this Oedipal concept be seen within the work of Larry Sultan? Are these images a visual metaphor describing a son’s competition for his mother? Does he view his father as a rival for her attentions and affections?

If this stage is not negotiated, or only part negotiated then, a continual struggle ensues. Repressed feelings from failed attempts form conflicts and throughout life an attempt is made to seek out its resolution. In the case of these series of images, Sultan attempts again to negotiate its resolution. The Oedipal dilemma can be seen simply as a realisation of the dynamics within a triadic relationship moving from a dyadic one, or can be a more dramatic visualisation of a painful process of reconciliation of a conflict, essentially, in wrestling power from dad and gaining access to mum. In other words, from the state of ‘me’ to realisation of the ‘other’, or a more dramatic outburst of repressed resentments held back from earlier failures of it’s negotiation.

As initially conceived by Sultan, the project was to be about ‘what happens when – as I interpreted my father’s fate – corporations discard their no-longer-young employees, and how the resulting frustrations and feelings of powerlessness find their way into family relations.’

These pictures, have been taken at a time when his father was forced into retirement; his patriarchal power is on the wane, an ideal opportunity for such an unconscious attack, for the son to gain access to his mother previously denied. To gain access to a mother denied for so long. The situation of the weakened father coincides with mother’s newfound power (her business was in the ascendancy).

The images are of the everyday, located in their home, however there is a sense of a wedge being forced between the main protagonists, is it simply the wedge of the obtrusive lens? No, it is the presence of Sultan Jr. we see, and this is what interests me in this series. It is more than a document of his parents, his background; the photographs show an interaction between them which indicate more that what we see on the surface. The boy is present in these images and it is a boy who wants access.

While describing the series for the Independent Michael Collins 2010 says,

‘The most magical and redeeming quality of photography, especially given the vulgar and superficial way it is so often employed, is that a photograph will reveal, subtly or otherwise, how the photographer was engaging with the subject. Our reading of family pictures is the most sophisticated of all, because our familial relationships are the most complicated, critical and contrary of all.’

The infant attempts an understanding of his relationship with that of his parents and his position in that dyad, at many stages of his life. Upon the realisation of the existence of the other, which may be manifested in his father’s rage and jealousy, he negotiates this place. These images are Sultans need to get between the two main protagonists, a photographic illustration of the attempt to engage with them both after the original ousting from the primal scene. Now is another chance, through photography, of making sense of his position of power in this triad. We are looking at Sultans Oedipal conflict revisited, for it will be his only opportunity, as Sultan Jr. was to die of cancer in 2009 in his 63^rd year. As we stare into this world of his parents Sultan reveals the psychological concept, that of the Oedipal dilemma. One that Collins alludes to, but does not name as such;

‘And yet, this was his parents’ home, the site where all those fraught hopes, understandings and misunderstandings, securities and insecurities, would be encountered over and over again, in an endless search, a longing, for a resolution of family and home.’

In this following statement Sultan admits to the inability to name what he is trying to do, the exchange below also illustrates clearly that father is still very much the patriarch, maintaining his authoritarian and dismissive tone.

Sultan Jr.

‘A lot of the time it doesn’t make sense to me either. All I know is that every time I try to make a photograph, you give me the steely-eyed look. You know it: penetrating but impenetrable, tough and in control. Or you shove your hands in your pockets and gaze off into some mythical future, which for some reason is about 45 degrees to my left. It’s like you’re acting the role of the heroic executive in an annual report, or in a diorama on success. Maybe you’re looking for a public image of yourself and I’m interested in something more private, in what happens between events – that brief moment between thoughts when you forget yourself.’

Sultan Snr.

‘That sounds good but I think it’s a load of crap. If anything, the picture shows how strained and artificial the situation was that you set up.’

In phantasy, I am suggesting that early attempts of access to mother are swiftly put down by Sultan Snr. The boy is humiliated and shamed, not let in, resentment builds and I am suggesting that the work is a visual representation of these struggles. In Freudian theory the father will metaphorically castrate the boy as punishment for his attempt on desires for mother, so these unsuccessful attacks on father will harbour resentment, he will pick his time more carefully next time. There is a temporary resolution, in the form of identification with father and his super ego is developed further, perhaps as a punishing and more critical inner moral authority. Resentment is repressed until such time the son can mount another attack. These lost battles with father foster more resentment and his need to kill off his father and gain access to his mother are again delayed.

The underlying resentment and wish for revenge in Jr. and the illusion of power within the patriarchal Snr. is maintained. It finds itself peacefully and subtly embedded into the work, unnoticed by his parents, perhaps not fully resolved by the boy. Sultans Oedipal struggle is part-resolved, his strength to repel against parental authority without identification, is his ultimate goal of his art. This anger towards his father is now directed at both parents, he has gained a contact with reality through peaceful means. He has entered the primal scene at last, on his terms, producing the family photograph he wants to present to the world. He has confronted to a degree, the relationship between the three of them, resolving a certain amount of the anxiety.

Here we see a visual representation of the conflict approaching resolution, a form of figurative emasculation. Here, photography is used as the therapeutic tool in the resolution of the Oedipal Dilemma.

Spencer Rowell 2012

Self-Portraiture Seen As An Emergence From An Artists’ Retreat

Self-Portraiture Seen As An Emergence From An Artists’ Retreat

Seeing And Being Seen. Emerging From A Psychic Retreat

John Steiner (2011)

I see this project, through the use of photography and the production of self-portraits, as an artists’ way to reveal an inner self, to move from a position of being psychically hidden, to a place of being observed. The process of production of artefacts and their presentation may be viewed as an artist’s emergence from this place of psychic retreat to what may function as a position of awareness. Can this use of the camera combined with the mediation of the viewer, be seen as a therapeutic process?

The presentation of images attempts to peer over the parapet of these defences, to be in a place of the gaze of ‘other’; having felt contained and protected behind the lens, an attempt is made to reveal oneself in a conspicuous, exposed way, in front of the lens. Along with vulnerability and potential humiliation, it can reveal, among others, the defence of narcissism, a defence that comes into being because of self-consciousness, brought about by the original gaze, of recognition by the other.

Often, artists will express themselves through self-portraiture, as a way of gaining awareness of inner states – a way of facing these depressive anxieties. Through this process defences, until now sheltered from view in isolation, can emerge. The objects of shame are in shadow, so to speak, shielded from view from both internal reflection and external observation.

The project also involves a process of bringing together parts, the complete person perhaps until now cannot be seen in one light. Viewing these distorted parts in isolation can maintain a sense of incompleteness, in a part sheltered position, hiding an internal world made up of many lost objects. Each individual image offers a snapshot into these worlds, when these lost object representations are viewed as a whole, the internal world may become as real to the artist as his external world, these internal objects come to life, vividly brought into reality through interpretation and exhibition. Will this process of being seen and exposed, bring the artist out to face a new reality?

The Observing Figure
Vision, offers an important role, as with projection and introjection of these part objects. Consciously and unconsciously, it is essential for exchange and building of object relations.

Steiner (2011) writes;

‘Later in development the eye takes over some of the functions that had previously relied on proximity senses. In particular, projection and introjection becomes mediated by the eyes, as for example when gaze becomes capable of penetrating and can be used to enter the object and identify with it’ p10

The power of the gaze is also used to mediate hierarchy in family dynamics, for example, the father who looks down on the son, using this as weapon of humiliation. When this is exercised in a cruel way, the child may resort to narcissistic traits to attempt to reverse this humiliation. Status is all-important in family dynamics and if the Oedipal conflict is not or only part negotiated, then this can lead to the harbouring of resentments and a need to eventually seek revenge against this internalised persecutory object. Under the gaze of these persecutory others, defences emerge and the psychic retreat of the artist begins. There begins a process, which is the nature of this enquiry, an attempt to reverse humiliation through resentment and to seek revenge; as away to resolve the original conflict. To produce the very images that will be projected onto the viewer is a way of dealing with such feelings.

‘Projection and introjection now come to be mediated by the eyes, and the gaze becomes capable of penetrating and can be used not only to observe the object as a whole, but also to enter the object and identify with it. The excitement associated with entry transforms the child’s position from that of an observer into that of a voyeur’ p38

If the observing figure is seen to be hostile, so the introject becomes hostile and one feels inferior in the presence of these persecutory objects. Individuals do shame others as a form of feeling superior; power dynamics often involve elements of and the role of the gaze in humiliation and shame.

Art plays a crucial role in the expression of these internal affects, the artists sensitivity to and the viewing of and presentation of these images support the idea of shame surfacing in self-portraiture, for example, the distorted images of Bacon and the feelings of shame and humiliations that emanate and is richly illustrated in his work.

The gaze confirms the development of sense of self, the mother’s approving gaze is at the core of the building of self-esteem and the essential role of mirroring in the therapeutic engagement is a technique to replicate this experience, often highlighting its lack. Affirmative views of self are seen in the eyes of the observing object, this builds on this core, however often they come to characterise or embody the persecuting eyes of the father, the dominant super ego that becomes destructive.

Oedipus

The infant, confronted by this Oedipal triangle is central to this notion of being seen in the view of this third person. Finding it difficult to readapt to a dynamic that essentially excludes, the realisation that the parents have a relationship with each other and that now is not made of even two separate dyadic experiences. As the infant recognises this relationship from which he is excluded, of the mother, once his primary object of desire onto which he projects his feelings of hate and love, being separate from the secondary object who makes his presence known and felt, would typically become the child’s critical superego; as the observer and judge of the relationship and ultimately all his future relationships. If this is not resolved sufficiently, it can often involve the child engaging with each parent separately, always excluding one or the other.

The gaze from outside the mother-child unit, if non-nurturing and not relating through persuasion but power and authority, becomes, in classical thought, the threat of castration and along with intimidation of the child, creates conflict. And so begins the retreat from what is psychic pain. A compromise is ultimately reached where the struggle of power is lost and the boy searches outside of the family, he relinquishes his need for the mother, however, the resentment is mealy temporarily displaced.

Narcissus

The original narcissistic relationship is the ‘I’, the omnipotent child that sees only himself in the mothers face. Winnicott asks (1967), ‘What does the infant see when he looks into the face of the mother?’ ‘Ordinarily, what the baby sees is him or herself’.

This is the version of Narcissus, the approving glance from mother (his own reflection) that continues to confirm a valued internal view of self, a picture of self-nurturing, mediated mainly through vision. The view from the other disrupts this.

‘In my view it is this introduction of the third observing and often authoritarian object that gives the superego such persecuting qualities associated with humiliation’ Steiner (2011) p30

The prospect of being seen through, of being looked at but not seen, terrifies the narcissist, however offers a function of narcissism; as a way of preventing the experience of separateness of object and subject. Exposure to gaze of the other validates or contradicts the child’s original image of oneself.

Conclusion

These images are the artists starting point on a journey consisting of a variety of manoeuvres to attempt to reverse the original humiliation and resolve the Oedipal dilemma. The observer along with the therapist or the engaged viewer in the gallery, attempts to understand what is being said - this is different from the aggressive, dismissive, superego of the internalised object, a manifestation of the original internalised other. The photograph becomes a projection where gaze becomes the central role. This experience of exposure to the gaze leads to discomfort, embarrassment, shame and humiliation, however, the self-portrait becomes a need to emerge from a psychic retreat and face internalised objects more realistically.

Perhaps the journey towards an exhibition is the notion of bringing the parts all together to be known. Where good and bad qualities can be recognised, from a distance perhaps. The anxieties are at their worst in the phantasy of being seen as a whole, as complete, where inconsistencies and negative aspects of self are brought together. This struggle for power in the Oedipal situation relates to the family structure and these conflicts are visualised within the traditional family album and how it is represented in the external world. Through the creation of an alternative family album, this series of images may represent the resentment that has become revenge, or the start of reparation and resolution of the Oedipal dilemma.

Spencer Rowell 2012

J.M. Barrie -Peter Pan 1928

“Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this and you would find it very interesting to watch. It's quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on Earth you picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek, as if it were a nice kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out the prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”

The Blank Screen in the Room

Yves Klein, IKB 191, 1962

The email exchange below, between myself and the therapists analysing my work (referred to as DB and LB), highlights an interesting area in the process; that of the role of counter-transference. There is also an ethical angle to be acknowledged and considered. Being confronted by an image, that couldn’t/wouldn’t respond was evidently causing conflicts within the examiners; what was happening to the viewer seems to be very much an important part of the data collection. Was the therapist being probed by the work? Or perhaps I, in the guise of my own self-portrait, was analysing the therapist?

Message from LB

Dear Spencer

I agree that to start an email dialogue is out of line with what you're doing here BUT did have a thought I wanted to send. I wondered if there was any way of the pieces "replying" to the comments, to make it more of a conversation - although I imagine this would mean they were less finished pieces. Of course, this may be something you have considered and discarded for good reasons. Or perhaps it is already happening. Anyway, in the interests of not turning this into an email communication, don't feel the need to reply to this. I just wanted to put that thought across. LB

Message from DB

Dear Spencer

It must have taken its toll on me the last image, as seem to be struggling to send this to you. Forgetfulness, busyness, sure but also something else.

I hesitate because I worry about how this might affect you, and me. I’ve managed to be frightened by the power I have to guess your meaning. This tips psychotherapy on its head and only acts to vandalise your meaning, you attach to your photography. I hesitate I think because I’ve realised the project warps my understanding of psychotherapy / counselling / psychoanalysis. It’s interesting so I’d like to continue, but it is also deeply troubling for this relationship with a static, unreactive product of yours left at the Guild to be scrutinised, to be called psychotherapy. You produce it, leave it in the corner then, in because of its lack of words, it encourages a flurry of interpretation – no guesswork – from a trainee therapist. I realise this can’t be doing psychotherapy any more than discussing a paper on psychotherapy can be confused with actually doing therapy. I worry perhaps that aside from the impossible question of doing good, I can’t rule out doing harm. Maybe I think too much of myself… DB

Response to DB and LB

Dear DB and LB

I write to you both as I would like to acknowledge that both of you have indicated a need to not perhaps question the process, but perhaps not feel as engaged. There is a sense of lostness, a questioning of this process (performance?) and perhaps even a feeling of an unsettling nature. Perhaps this isn't analysis, assessing, or even photo critique; perhaps we do not have to put a name to it at all. I do know that if you can continue being frank, honest and thoughtful then whatever it is, it feels interesting and worthy of documentation. What has also emerged is the importance of also documenting your feelings about the project; if you feel something (or of course nothing) about the work, please say. It is invaluable additional material knowing your process as well. Can I leave it there, for a while
Spencer

Response from LB

Dear Spencer,

‘Absolutely. It's your project. It was just a thought.’ LB

Response from DB

Dear Spencer,

‘Yeah, shall we let it develop and see what comes up? I agree it makes sense to hold off for the moment naming what we are doing.’ DB

The artwork were certainly unearthing something of interest within the viewers, but was this information about the artist, the representation of the artist, (the photograph), the process or the therapist. Was it questioning the unique creative consolidation of all these, that comes about from any engagement with art. It came to mind that the work was more than simply a ‘blank screen’, a term familiar with any therapist, that here was a disruption, something emotive and worrying emerging. These engagements have been called ‘Sessions’ although they are effectively inert objects that do not say anything. The email exchange affected me also, as the author, I have left a break before delivering the next piece of work, in fact, as I write this, I have two pieces ready for delivery and two more in production that will be ready for presentation to the ‘Guild’ very soon.

The blank screen concept, would indicate a unilateral process of engagement and although generally discredited in the field of psychoanalysis, the UKCP website, describes the process of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy as follows:

‘The client is encouraged to talk about childhood relationships with parents and other significant people, the primary focus being to reveal the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension. The therapist endeavours to keep his own personality out of the picture, in essence becoming a blank canvas onto which the client can transfer and project deep feelings about themselves, parents and other significant players in their life’.

In this description the concept ‘blank canvas’ is used to describe an aspect of the therapeutic encounter; what to expect for the unsuspecting new client, a way also of introducing psychodynamic work and differentiating it from more directive therapies. By using this metaphor, it also introduces the concept of a more creative process of the interaction between the client and therapist as they engage. Are the assessors of the work fearful of their own projections placed upon these inert pieces of artwork? Is the blank screen, the photograph, confronting them?

In 1977 I visited the Pompidou Centre in Paris and sat for many hours in front of Yves Klein’s IKB19I, essentially a canvas painted blue of approximately three by four feet in size (illustrated). I wondered what I was looking at; as the viewer I wanted to know what I was experiencing, what was the artist communicating to me? It was a frustrating experience, with so little to go on, I was at a loss feeling that there was something that this encounter could reveal or inform, perhaps show something of myself. I understood Yves Klein was making me question myself, a wise other within me, who would show the importance of this encounter, there is a possibility that perhaps this is what LB and DB partly experience being confronted by these photographs. In the case of my encounter, it evoked in me the internal voice of my critical father, a negative, authoritarian, dismissive tone, questioning the value, ‘what was its point’; I was left feeling angry and unfulfilled.

Yves Klein was also clearly also frustrated by the responses of some of his viewers.

‘From the reactions of the audience, [Klein] realized that...viewers thought his various, uniformly coloured canvases amounted to a new kind of bright, abstract interior decoration. Shocked at this misunderstanding, Klein knew a further and decisive step in the direction of monochrome art would have to be taken’. (Weitemeier, H. 1994)

It occurs to me that for DB and LB, the above analogy might describe quite well their feelings of what faces them in their encounters with my work. Yves Klein, for me, and perhaps my project with DB and LB, brings us all face to face with expectations of our project together and the reality of the fears and frustrations ahead, this may leave them as I was left, confused, frightened and perhaps unfulfilled.

The classical approach to psychoanalytical treatment would have been a unilateral process; the patient working towards awareness in the presence of the all-knowing therapist and in this process could be offered respite from psychic pain. Now, the analyst’s experience is seen as an important part of this process and is no longer simply, in the words of Glovacchini (1994), ‘the direction of treatment flowing from the patient to a blankscreen analyst’. The notion of scrupulous neutrality and non-responsiveness of the therapists’ past or present being involved with the workings of the patient’s internal mind is now seen as a hindrance to understanding. As Langs (1978) writes, ‘the patient is constantly monitoring the analysts countertransference attitudes and their associations (my associations with the assessors feedback) can often be understood as “commentaries on them”’, (p509)

Fenichel believes that the suppression of countertransference in the therapeutic engagement is equivalent to the suppression of human feeling and the concept of countertransference is seen as a vital tool in which to describe the very early interaction of mother child attunement. ‘This recognition of the importance of a reciprocal relationship and its integration into contemporary psychoanalysis has spelt the death knell of the blank screen method’. If these responses are suppressed, or not conveyed, through interpretations of the work, will this affect the data collection in this research project?

I had transferred my desire, as a viewer of the artwork IKB 191 to gain insight and knowledge from the encounter, when I didn’t get anything back I had the experience of frustration and a sense of loss. However the reality in a therapeutic engagement with a client, a meeting with a thinking and feeling other, is of course a very different situation. This is not a unilateral engagement as in the photographic assessments, but a far more complex intersubjective, creative dyadic experience. As artists, the question is, how do we reveal parts of ourselves through exhibition, and how does the viewer experience this engagement? Do they see on this blank screen, an opportunity of creativeness (use), a shared experience, or do they see their own projections and defences, perhaps distorted reflections of their own?

Winnicott (1982) ponders the difference between simply ‘object relating’ and ‘object usage’ and that the capacity to use an object is very different from that of object relations. The continual projection on to a screen and introjection of those reflections, is a crucial part of the client work, however this could be seen, as simply setting the therapeutic framework for the more important role of object use. It is the survival of the therapist through these exchanges that develops object ‘use’. The object becomes more meaningful; its survival (continued project) becomes this new-shared reality of client /therapist, viewer/artist. This ‘use’ becomes a shared experience and not simply a screen on to which has been bombarded projections. In Winnicott’s term, ‘part of a shared reality, not a bundle of projections’ (p118).

When one talks to a patient, they are aware I am listening, however if we create an image or symbol that resonates with us, through interpretation, they will sense I am in touch with them (this is also the nature of art and its affect on the viewer). Responsive dialogue involves a match, or ‘fit.’ However, when this isn’t achieved, what then? Wright (2009) says the artist, in this space, is poised on the edge of ‘no mother’ (the un-attuned mother), so hence the artists compulsion to go on creating or the viewers urge to go on searching for meaning.

Through this project, I try to put my inner psychic experience into images for assessment. I describe my own work and compare this with the interpretations from the examiners through the lens of psychoanalytic theory; in offering these artworks to be viewed, an attempt to imagine what is this inner state being experienced, is. Can this empathy and identification be achieved through the viewing of photographic artwork? Are counter transference and the interpretative responses an important part of the process, as the assessors feel their way into the meaning of the work, just as the therapist would feel themselves into the intra-psychic world of the client. Is this is what I am actually asking of LB and DB.

‘When the medium gives the artist what he needs then he experiences joy and self-realisation. The panic of facing the blank canvas is a re-enactment of the primitive anxiety of the non-adaptive mother, the distracted mother’. (Wright 2009)

The viewer that gets too frightened is re-enacting this concept of an un-adaptive mother also. He/she may be frightened of the blankness that confront them, trying to get a response, the non-smiling, silent face, that makes the client feel he is not recognised. The client doesn’t know what you are thinking, in part they want you to be this blank screen; in this state it may be familiar, from this place, they can think the worst (of themselves or the artist).

This communication of aspects of self is a rapid oscillation of projection and introjections, says Money-Kyrle, unconsciously acquiring affective experience. As the ‘normal’ form of interaction, this builds the therapeutic alliance and leads to an understanding through interpretation. Loosing the thread however, can produce certain anxieties within both client and therapist; this is where periods of interaction overlap with experience that have not been resolved in the therapist; I sense of losing touch or grip, a break in the empathic bond. The email exchange indicates that perhaps LB fears losing grip and DB may have already lost it. In a therapeutic situation, if we cannot tolerate the client that cannot be understood, the patient can be shut out, feeling abandonment; this creates a ‘further bar to understanding’.

So, I offer a screen onto which the viewer can project, collude and be frustrated, the artwork is at times the ‘no-mother’ to my examiners. In my encounter with Yves Klein, I transferred my desire for knowledge and insight of myself, but when I didn’t get anything back I felt frustrated and at a loss. (Yves Klein, in producing IKB 191, was perhaps compensating for his own deficiencies in attunement, making reflective forms of his own, and through this process, gaining an ability to exist and feel real).

A part of me is in the room with the assessor and the viewer’s countertransference is therefore a very valuable access point to this world of the artist. However, even without facts, the viewers reveal much of themselves, in their interpretations. Being passive, as the artwork is and to some extent persecutory, will leave the observer feeling as I did in the encounter with Y. Klein, angry and unfulfilled. However there is a form of dialogue building in the form of the continuation of the project, a shared creativity. Future images, although as yet unproduced, will reveal yet more from the producer and viewer, the artist will adapt, this becomes over time, the dialogue between artist and examiner.

Spencer Rowell 2012