Photo psychology or 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]
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]
At the 111th APA convention in 2003, Joel Morgovsky, a photographer and retired psychology professor from Brookdale Community College, in Lincroft, New Jersey, alongside three other colleagues, presented a timeline of interactions between photography and psychology (see table below). [1] [7] [8]
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 |
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]
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]
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]
Reading Pictures is the study of photographs as reflections of the makers' personal, subjective experiences. [6] Morgovsky, a pioneer in Reading Pictures, established six fundamental mindsets needed for Reading Pictures: [6] [20]
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