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Photopsychology

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Photopsychology is a specialty within psychology dedicated to identifying and analyzing relationships between psychology and photography.[1] Photopsychology traces several points of contact between photography and psychology.[1] As a result, a fresh understanding of the origins of several current therapeutic and psychological testing practices based on photography emerges.[1]

Many forms of photography have been used in psychology including, patient portrait photographs[2], family photographs[3][4], ambiguous photographs[5] and photographers' photographs[6]. Forms of psychological practices using photographs include Photoanalysis[3], Phototherapy[4], Walker Visuals[5], and Reading Pictures.[6]

Timeline

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At the 111th APA convention in 2003, Joel Morgovsky, a photographer and retired psychology professor from Brookdale Community College, in Lincroft, New Jersey, along side three other colleagues, presented a timeline of interactions between photography and psychology (see table below).[1][7][8]

History
Date Person Event Importance
1856 Hugh W. Diamond Portraits help diagnose, treat, and catalogue patients First point of contact between photography and psychiatry
1973 Robert U. Akeret Introduces Photoanalysis Establishes the use of family photographs in psychotherapy
1983 Joel Morgovsky Introduces Reading Pictures First formal presentation on what would become "reading pictures"
1986 Joel Wlaker Introduces Walker Visuals First use of ambiguous photographs to be used as projective stimuli for clinical use
1999 Judy Weiser Introduces PhotoTherapy Establishes loose techniques collectively known as phototherapy
2003 Franklin, Formanek, Blum, & Morgovsky Present photopsychology timeline at 111th APA convention First symposium identifying interactions between photography and psychology

Photography in Psychotherapy

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Patient Portraits

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Portrait of a patient, Surrey County Asylum

In 1856, only a couple of decades after photography began, Hugh W. Diamond, a psychiatrist at the Surrey Asylum in Surrey County, England began taking photographs of his patients to aid in diagnosing and treating them.[9][10][11][12] Since the portraits contained more information about his patients' levels of emotion than language, definitions, or classifications, they helped with more accurate diagnoses.[2][12] For example, mental suffering can be categorized under vague terms such as distress, sorrow, grief, melancholy, anguish, and despair, but a photograph speaks for itself, precisely identifying where the patient is on the scale of unhappiness.[2]

In sharing these portraits with the patients' themselves, Diamond found that the portraits can produce a positive effect on the patients, especially if successive portraits illustrate their progress to recovery.[2] One case study conducted by Diamond revealed how a patient's portraits helped lead to a cure through providing an attainable outside perspective of reality.[2] The patient suffered from delusions which consisted of supposed possession of great wealth and holding status of being a Queen.[2] In seeing her portraits and her frequent conversations about them with her therapist, she was able to gradually let go of her former imagined status.[2]

In addition to helping diagnose and treat his patients, Diamond also suggested that these portraits could help in protection and clear representation of patients in case of readmission; similarly to how mug shots are helpful for prisons with improving certainty of previous conviction and in recapturing someone who might have escaped.[2]

Personal Photographs

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Photoanalysis, proposed by Robert U. Akeret, is the study of body language in personal photographs (e.g. family photographs) to increase self-awareness, better understand interpersonal relationships, and more accurately recollect past episodic events.[3][13][14] Phototherapy, like photoanalysis, is a therapeutic technique which analyzes personal photographs and the feelings, thoughts, memories, and associations these photos evoke, as a way to deepen insight and enhance communication during therapy session.[4][15] Currently, phototherapy is being practiced by Judy Weiser in Vancouver, Canada in the PhotoTherapy Center.[4][14][15][16]

Ambiguous Photographs

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Walker Visuals, four 13" x 19" color, ambiguous, abstract, dreamlike, and evocative photographs, were created by psychiatrist and photographer, Joel Walker.[5][17][18][19] Similarly to the Rorschach test, what is perceived when looking at these photographs depends on one's own history, expectations, needs, beliefs, feelings, and what happened just before viewing the image.[5][18] Walker created these images after observing how his patients responded to strange photos he had taken and displayed on his office wall.[5][17] From there, Walker expended his collection to include a range of themes from positive to negative.[5] The images act as representations of his patient's inner world which allow them to better verbalize feelings and memories.[5][17][18] Walker visuals can be used universally across culture, language, education, and class.[5]

Photographers' Photographs

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Reading Pictures is the study of photographer's photographs under the belief that the photographs are reflections of the makers' personal, subjective experiences.[6] Morgovsky, a pioneer in establishing reading pictures, believes that there are six fundamental mindsets needed for reading pictures[6]:

  1. Overcoming The Illusion of Reality (OTIR): Understanding that a photograph is a 2D representation, rather than reality.[6]
  2. The Rule of No Accidents (RNA): Everything in a photograph is there on purpose. A photograph is created when one makes a decision to expose a moment of time as a representation of a conscious experience.[6]
  3. Free Association (FA): An attitude of openness to emotional content of photograph. Photographers project their emotions through their photographs, and the reader should open to feeling the maker's emotions.[6]
  4. Attribution Process (AP): Guess the cause of observed behavior. Ask questions like "What does it mean that this person would take this particular photograph, of this subject matter, from this point of view, using these methods?". This mindset was proposed by Fritz Heider and Harold Kelley.[6]
  5. Thematic Analysis (TA): Analyze the limited cognitive and emotional themes that run across photographers' collections of work. Being alert and responsive to those themes is important for constructing a working model of the photographer's experiential world.[6]
  6. Genre and Skill Level (GSL): Take into consideration genre and skill level. Examples of genre include landscape, still-life, portraiture, documentary, straight, surreal, etc.[6] Skill level can be classified along levels of articulation (LOA), in which photographers vary in the degree to which their cognitive and emotional experience are expressed in their photographs:[6]
    1. Innocent Photographers: camera owners who take pictures on an irregular basis for chronicling family events, vacations, and special moments. They do not consider themselves photographers beyond a functional level and articulate themselves the least. Reading Pictures can still work from the work of innocents.[6]
    2. Amateur Photographers: people who enjoy photography, join photography clubs and societies, analyze and discuss photography.[6] Since they are involved in the community, they are often inspired to imitate pictures they have admired in the work of others, and are consequently, less personally expressive.[6] Since photography is also a technical skill, photographers can have a technical mask, in which obtaining new cameras, lenses, light sources, etc. could also distract photographs from being about personal expression and more about technical mastery.[6]
    3. Mature Photographers: consciously use the medium of photography as means of creative self-expression.[6] They have developed their own ways of seeing through the lens and have their own personal style which is consistent through most of their work. Most articulate, and reading a few photos of theres can provide insight into their personal cognitive and emotional experience.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "WHAT IS PHOTO PSYCHOLOGY? | My CMS". photopsychology.com. Retrieved 2018-03-28.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Diamond, Hugh W. (2010). "On the Application of Photography to the Physiognomic and Mental Phenomena of Insanity (1856)*". PISCOART. 1: 1–14 – via Unibo.
  3. ^ a b c Chalfen, Richard (10/1/1974). "Akeret: Photoanalysis" (PDF). Studies in Visual Communication. 1: 57–60 – via Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ a b c d "PhotoTherapy & Therapeutic Photography Techniques". PhotoTherapy & Therapeutic Photography Techniques. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Walker, Joel (2009). "The Walker Visuals" (PDF). Cancerologia. 4: 9–18.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q "WHAT IS READING PICTURES? | My CMS". photopsychology.com. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
  7. ^ "ABOUT Joel Morgovsky | My CMS". photopsychology.com. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  8. ^ Morgovsky, Joel (2007). "Photography on the Couch: The Psychological Uses of Photography" (PDF). The General Psychologist: Division ONE. 42: 27–30 – via American Psychological Association.
  9. ^ "D is for… Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond: Photography and the pseudoscience of physiognomy". National Science and Media Museum blog. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  10. ^ "Hugh Welch Diamond | Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum | The Met". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  11. ^ "Hugh Welch Diamond (British, 1809 - 1886) (Getty Museum)". The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  12. ^ a b "Portraits of Insanity The Photos of Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond -". CVLT Nation. 2014-11-07. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  13. ^ Saffady, William (October 1974). "Manuscripts and Psychohistory". The American Archivist: 559 – via The American Archivist.
  14. ^ a b "Photographic Psychology: Interpreting People Pics". truecenterpublishing.com. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  15. ^ a b "What is PhotoTherapy? | Arts in Therapy Network". www.artsintherapy.com. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  16. ^ "Judy Weiser". PhotoTherapy & Therapeutic Photography Techniques. 2014-07-02. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  17. ^ a b c Jacobs, Nellie (Spring 2002). "A Picture Unleashes a Thousand Words" (PDF). MEDHUNTERS magazine: 8–10.
  18. ^ a b c Zakia, Richard (2003). "Perception and Imaging: The Walker Visuals". Perception and Imaging: Photography–A Way of Seeing. 4 – via Taylor & Francis Group.
  19. ^ "Joel Walker, Photographer, Psychiatrist". www.joelwalker.com. Retrieved 2018-04-04.

Further Reading

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"The Face of Madness: Hugh W. Diamond and the Origin of Psychiatric Photography" by Sander L. Gilman, Hugh W. Diamond, and John Conolly further discusses details of Diamond's contributions to photopsychology .[1]

"Portraits of the Insane: The Case of Dr. Diamond" by Adrienne Burrows and Iwan Schumacher is a collection of Dr. H.W. Diamond's work.[2]

"Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age" edited by Del Loewenthal provides a foundation of phototherapy and describes the most recent developments.[3]

"Review of Akeret's Photoanalysis" by Dr. Richard Chalfen, published in: Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication.[4]

"Photolanguage: How Photos Reveal the Fascinating Stories of Our Lives and Relationships" by Robert U. Akeret.[5]

John Suler's Top 10 Book Reviews & Recommended Readings For Photographic Psychology.[6]

Further Reading References

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  1. ^ Gilman, Sander L.; Diamond, Hugh W.; Conolly, John (2014-03-14). Face of Madness: Hugh W. Diamond and the Origin of Psychiatric Photography. Echo Point Books & Media. ISBN 9781626549234.
  2. ^ Burrows, Adrienne; Schumacher, Iwan (1990-10-01). Portraits of the Insane: The Case of Dr. Diamond. London; New York: Quartet Books. ISBN 9780704326149.
  3. ^ Loewenthal, Del, ed. (2013-02-06). Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age (1 edition ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9780415667364. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  4. ^ "Richard Chalfen, PhD / Bio & CV". www.richardchalfen.com. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  5. ^ Noble, Barnes &. "Photolanguage: How Photos Reveal the Fascinating Stories of Our Lives and Relationships". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  6. ^ "Photographic Psychology: Reviews and Recommended Readings". truecenterpublishing.com. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
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