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

Shadows of Doubt: A Psycho-Geographic Enquiry into the Childhood of Alfred Hitchcock

Symposium: 24th November 2011, 1.30pm

Exhibition: 20th November - 16th December

Private View: December 1st, 6-8pm

In conjunction with the East London Archive

London Metropolitan University, Whitechapel

London

Speakers include:

Steven Jacobs

Simon Usher

Dr Chris Oakley

Dr Nick Haeffner

Sue Andrews

Michael Upton

David George

Spencer Rowell

At London Metropolitan University and part of the East London Archive.

The work in Shadows of Doubt relates to the East End of the film director Alfred Hitchcock’s childhood. It uses images of the built environment as a starting point for an exploration of relationships between physical place, memory, psychological development and aesthetic sensibility. The symposium will look the relationship between childhood and artistic creation, memory as a fictive image and the role of architecture in filmic and photographic representation.

‘The infants initial world is made of symbols, created concrete objects made from his pre-verbal structuring. Does the artist hang on to this unique much earlier code of communication?’ Winnicott.

Much is debated about Hitchcock’s work and its representation. The images I show play with this idea of subjective experience of concrete objects, perhaps bringing external form from some inner state, not necessarily the ‘real’ external world but that of its interior, of inner experience. Can these pictures be seen as portraying the shapes of non-verbal imagery?

Segal, a Kleinian psychoanalyst stated that the rebuilding of these fragments of symbols of scattered objects is the creative act. Do these objects represent the filmmaker’s first ‘not-me’ objects, a subjective part of the infant’s memories of earlier experience?

The attempt is to recast subjective feeling states into more or less objective form as new photographic objects.

Did Hitchcock offer us an insight into his internal world through his films?

Were they a way of showing us his own internal conflicts, of creating a life’s work of scripted realisations of his early life experiences?

‘You must know’ Hitchcock is reported in saying, ‘that when I'm making a movie, the story isn't important to me. What's important is how I tell the story.’ Psychodynamic analytical theory would have us believe that the telling of any story, within a certain frame, is indeed, an insight into early life experiences.

Hitchcock was raised a strict Catholic and within an authoritarian matriarchal family, the influential males in his life where either priests or policemen. His preoccupation with guilt may have been further developed by his evangelisation and education, from 1908 onwards, at St. Ignatius College, Stamford Hill, London (pictured), where it is said, that the Jesuit fathers dispensed corporal punishment with pious rigor. In the words of Hitchcock, ‘It wasn't done casually, you know. It was rather like the execution of a sentence . . . You spent the whole day waiting for the sentence to be carried out.’

There is a sense that there is a search for spiritual redemption in his work; most of his films display some sense of sin, guilt, atonement and redemption, perhaps this is a response to his Catholic sensibilities.

This interim project looks at my curiosity of how it may have been for him as a child, a highly subjective and contemporary view of his earliest influences, an understanding of how, psychologically, Hitchcock’s ability to respond to these complex and emotional influences, may have surfaced as sublimation and humour, two mature defenses mechanisms, where socially unacceptable impulses or idealisations may have been consciously transformed through work; a way of diversion, of modification into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity.

Were these defenses really concealing a deeper trauma in order to avoid any unpleasant consequences of confronting inner conflicts?

Of course, we will never know. Hitchcock’s most able talent was to create illusions, this ability to create suspense and of us questioning his (and our) motives, is what he did best. 

Spencer Rowell 2011

The Concerned Photographer - The Search for an Alternative Family Album

from Private to Public

Symposium curated by Sue Andrews and Fiona Yaron-Field

The Women’s Library, 25 Old Castle Street, London E1 7NT

Symposium 3.11.11 from 10am – 6pm

‘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)

Spencer Rowell, PHD student at the Cass, artist/photographer

The Search for an Alternative Family Album

The obscured information of significance in a photograph is 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 the 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 the external world.

Spencer Rowell 2012

With contributions from Emmanuelle Dirix, Lecturer in Critical Studies at the Royal College of Art, Winchester School of Art, Central Saint Martins and Antwerp Fashion Academy in Belgium. Laura Hynd, Artist, Lesley McIntyre, Photographer, Eti Wade, Mother-Artist, Senior Lecturer in Photography University of West London, Ian Robertson, Artist / Subject Leader in Fine Art at The Cass, LMU and Susan Andrews, Artist / photographer/MA Photography Course Leader at The Cass, LMU.

An Essay on Shame

‘When I draw, I’m in oblivion. I don’t see what I’ve done because I can’t see my own face- I don’t know what I look like. ‘

A schizophrenic patient (1991 p.265)

Paper On: Vision and Separation; Between Mother and Baby  Kenneth Wright (1991)

Introduction

In his book, Vision and Separation; between Mother and Baby (1991), Kenneth Wright offers us insight into the importance of early visual interaction alongside a discussion in psychoanalytic theory. It is at this early stage of development of infant experiences where the first view of self is experienced and through this early interaction and identification that the concept of consciousness (coming into being) and self-consciousness (of being seen) can be traced. I will discuss this in the conjunction with an interim response to the interpretation of ‘Session 2’, by ‘The Guild’; an image largely interpreted as representing a symbol of shame.

‘Session 2’

The facial engagement is a rich source of emotional messages and is a very important part of the process of early human interaction. This first infant-mother visual contact should be seen as not necessarily as a literal visual interaction, but more of a shared reverie; a knowing based on seeing or being, rather than looking or being looked at. It will be argued that, the self-portraits presented to ‘The Guild’, along with their psychoanalytical interpretations, reach back into the artist’s early experience of this early facial interaction.

All art, according to Langer (1942) is concerned in ‘giving form and articulation to human feeling, and a re-creation of such early feelings and states of relatedness to the mother (p20). Fuller (xxxx) suggests, using Natkin as an example, that artists strive to recreate a dialogue with mother. ‘I am suggesting that, for Natkin, the canvas surface became a surrogate for that reciprocal encounter he had lacked with the good mother’s face’ (p211)

I would certainly be in keeping with this view. It is unimaginable, I believe, that this early encounter could leave no trace in creative expression and self-representation. I am enquiring whether a suspension, latent or potential, of mother infant interaction remains in the self–portrait/analyst engagement and that symbols of this early reflection can be re-covered through the viewing and psychological assessment of them. This article is an opportunity to respond these early interpretations of artwork offered to ‘The Guild’.

Wright comments that his book is primarily,

'An attempt to tease out [….] that may be written of myself, an autobiography. An internal self I feel but have not been able to describe. Or explain. To pursue my reflection in search of knowledge to illuminate my darkness ‘giving ease to unknowing’ and create a form of knowing of oneself. Seeing gives form and understanding, previously felt but not understood'. (1991 intro pxii)

The Conscious to Self-conscious

Consciousness comes into being during this short and yet so important stage of visual development or mirroring. First the child sees the mother’s face as himself in the mirror; this emotional reflection is seen as the infant’s complete internal world, the omnipotent ‘I’, merged and ‘as one’ with his carer. As the development of consciousness continues and through partial separations, a realisation of ‘Me’ occurs, of being both a physical and emotional separate entity. From this intense visual didactic relationship comes a sense of both mother and infant being looked upon. A view from beyond the maternal bond, of being seen from the position of the ‘Other’. It is during these last stages, that a sense of self-consciousness evolves.

In Searle’s view (1963p.xx), the central issue is that the ‘mother’s face is the child’s first emotional mirror and that it is through her responsiveness, that the child is able to know his own emotions’. This first emotional reflection that he experiences and along with symbol formation brought about by this psychic conflict, can also be seen as the beginnings of consciousness, a ‘looking and thinking space’ Wright (1991 p. xx).

During this interaction, there are many opportunities for the maternal reflection to develop distortions. If this is the case, during this early process of experiencing separateness between infant and mother, a feeling of alienation can be created; the realisation that the mirrored distortion, along with the infant’s fears of separation, confirms a look of non-affirming, coldness, filled with anxiety, this reflection becomes something to fear.
'The first face confirms and strengthens the child’s subjective being, amplifies it through reverberating circuits of reflection and response. The second face disconfirms, puts the child at distance, arrests the continuity of subjective feeling, and offers in its place a spectacle of the bad self that puts the continuity of love in question’ (Wright 1991 p27)

The presentation of image ‘Session 2’ can be seen as a search for this experience or of the visualisation of a deformed or distorted reflection. This is what the artist is trying to access, foster and adapt, in the production and presentation of the self-portrait; a form of synthesis of these feelings. If, not a loving face, but that of a more terrifying reflection is experienced, a reflection that perhaps brings a sense of distance and of non-affinity, the internal self image will be distorted. Projecting this distorted view out on to the ‘Other’, who looks in on to the maternal Dyad, confirms this distorted external appearance of self from the outside, this now distorted internal world. Shame.

Shame

In this sense we dread the faces of the onlookers. A look that could be accepted as a distorted view of an earlier self, a pre-verbal crisis, in the sight of the ‘Other’. What I see is a re-intrajection of an initial projection of a distorted view, which has been experienced from this initial visual engagement.


'There was someone, myself, raging against a controlling and constricting object, at a distance from, and unrecognised by, the one I loved. I saw myself there through the eyes the ‘Other’ as this awful, nearly subhuman sort of creature'. (Wright 1991 p115)

Lynd (1958), in Shame and the Search for Identity, says that shame can be described as the ‘exposure of oneself to oneself’’. It is an aspect of the ‘Other’s’ view, ones external view of self from this original distorted reflection. Shame could be described as being looked at, rather than being seen. My personal experience of finding it difficult to hold a stare, is this distorted view from the ‘Other’ and is shame based. To explore this territory for myself and get this more objective view of my internal world, this alternative angle of view, I exhibit self-portraits and ask for interpretations.

'The move to the triadic view is more transforming, it mediates to something closer to knowledge a new vision of self, each new position gives a new vision; each new vision throws a pattern on reality; each new pattern revitalises the previous ones'. (1991 p230)

Shame is ‘where ones experience (inner) and the ‘Others’ view (outer) meet’ ‘An interface between persons’ (1991 p29). Our internal world continues to be dictated by this view of our external self; it is defined by the outside view of this original traumatic reflection. In the case of shame, the internalised distorted reflection looking back on to self, I look into the mirror; but it is not as everyone else sees. This shame is but the distorted reflection of the early catastrophe experienced. This built distorted view of a frightening distorted reflection becoming not only an internal feeling, but also the view of ‘Other’.

John Paul Satre, says In Being and Nothingness, Me, ‘Shame is by nature recognition. I recognise that I am as the other sees’. As I produce the work, and offer the work for analysis, to be looked at, probed and ‘spat out', I experience being looked at, from many different angles. It is how I feel I am seen, and as I know myself, however, this process of self-witnessing allows a re-forming of inner image and a way of redefining self.

Reflections and Symbols of Feelings, as Interface to Communication.

It is this interaction between artwork and viewer that lets us into their world. Are these self-created symbols a search for a fit with that remembered reflection? Is it the interface to verbal expression of this feeling-state? Perhaps it is this symbol formation that we engage with during the viewing of any artwork, the viewer searching in their past for an image of this pre-language imagery, visualising these shared pre-verbal symbols.

Hannah Segal, notes, in her book Symbol Formation (xxxx)
'Not only the actual content, but also the very way in which symbols are formed and used, seems to reflect precisely the egos state of development and its way of dealing with its objects'.

This symbol formation is the coming together to this outer form and inner knowledge. Metaphor allows us to define our feeling in our way. In the therapeutic engagement, a client may use metaphor as a personal language, as precious to ones own world. However, if a combined communication is found through this connection then connection is more empathic, as with abstract art, it feeds directly to the world of connection before words, before language.

'The glimpse of the baby’s and child’s seeing the self in the mother’s face and afterwards in a mirror, gives a way of looking at analysis and the psychotherapeutic task. Psychotherapy is not making clever and apt interpretations; by and large it is a long term giving back to the patient what the patient brings. It is a complex derivative of the face that reflects what is there to be seen. I like to think of my work this way, and to think that if I do this work well enough the patient will find his or her self, and will be able to exist and feel real. Feeling real is more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself, and to relate to objects as oneself'.

Winnicott, Playing and Reality. (Xxxx pxx)

It is through the counter-transferential process of assessment, that shared symbols are brought to the surface by the analyst, their subjective state is forged into this work. Perhaps we can put it this way, I, as the portrait, am in the room with the analyst; though receiving a written interpretation the photographs analyse the analysts. (See future essay) This become part of the work, they identify, get close, juxtaposing a part of themselves into the image. As a way of integrating some of their inner form of experience, personal and theoretical, with that of the work. A shared pattern where the analyst and artwork resonate.

The viewer wants to find something of himself within the work, along with their integration of selected theories (those that resonate with the anylist), it enables the viewer to view something of himself that may not have been resolved or cannot be verbalised other than though the language of theory. Wright claims that ‘all psychodynamic theory is a piece of auto-biography, a symbolic form of the own therapists self’ (p313)

Conclusion

As a series of photographs, these self-portraits can be seen as external observations of one person from many different angles, observations of the internal self, viewed from all angles. Changes of perspective in relation to ones own self. ‘Session 2’, and its interpretation, is one such angle, giving more of an understanding and knowledge.

Art expression, which may of course include the written word, are these shared symbolic images. Clients in therapy, will grope about using words that seem to fit, often using language creatively, including metaphor and symbols to communicate. Language, then, along with unconscious material, becomes the way one becomes visible in the session. As an artist, exhibiting is the way we are seen and the way other’s will view us. The artist’s lexicon of the world becomes these symbols of the past built upon through mirrored reflections of self.

This image produced and its part in the collection, progression, their assessment and feedback create a part of a narrative of experience and can be seen as symbols or metaphors that form an interface to expression of pre-verbal communication. Perhaps, through this process, the external image is reformed, in a similar way with therapy, as a process of renewal; a possibility of finding new forms a more acceptable form of self.

Through the interpretation of a symbol ‘Session 2’, I have attempted to create a dialogue with shame. It was recognised as such through interpretation and I have explained through theory its relevance to early interaction and infant relation. Where curiosity prevails, exploration will always follow and this process, perhaps being a representation of a form of artistic regression, into the search of this primal catastrophe. I have discussed the image and its interpretation from the position of being potentially a symbol of distortion, part of a narrative, or one image, taken from one angle, of a person’s internal world.

This rich immediacy of pre-verbal language from our early and first experiences of the world are expressed through artwork, they languish in all our pasts in this repressed state. Although unique and personal in their associations with the artist, it is perhaps a relief, also, to find that these symbols represent a much more common language. These remnant’s are vivid and real, timeless and as in dreams, primal stirrings, often being incommunicable through language.

As we grow though childhood, language appears and there is a distancing from these early forms of communication, these buried memories of a maternal presence.

Spencer Rowell 2012