Using Personal Snapshots and Family Photographs as Therapy Tools: The "Why, What, and How" of PhotoTherapy Techniques

Abstract

This article explains how and why involving people's own personal and family snapshots in their therapy treatment ("PhotoTherapy Techniques") can enhance and deepen that process, as well as improve the quality of therapeutic results. It tells how photographs bridge deep into areas of the client where words cannot reach -- and thus provide an excellent means of examining and exploring feelings with the least amount of cognitive interference or protection. Based on the rationale that photographs contain emotional contents along with their visual details, the article shows how therapists trained in PhotoTherapy Techniques can use their clients' own personal and family photos to trigger memories, evoke feelings, reconnect thoughts, hide secrets, and bring the past "to light" in new ways. PhotoTherapy techniques are shown to be based on the fact that all photographs speak metaphorically and symbolically to and from the unconscious without any words being involved, and therefore any photographic image has the potential of reaching previously-blocked or overly-defended information and feelings, regardless of the therapist's preferred modality. After the "Introduction", and Sections on both "The Arts (and Art Therapy)" and "Photographs (and Photography)" that provide theoretical foundations for PhotoTherapy techniques, the article then moves from a general review of "Using Photographs in Therapeutic Practice" to a more specific explanation of the "Framework of PhotoTherapy Techniques", discussing the rationale and specific applications for each technique to be used alone or in combination with the others. It also includes a comparison between "PhotoTherapy" techniques and the closely-related applications of both "Photo Art Therapy" and also "Therapeutic Photography" -- and after the "Conclusion", ends with lists of internet links and publications where more information can be learned.