“Look at yourself through the eyes of another”: how photopsychology works

“The idea of ​​photopsychology came from my own personal crisis. I realized that my resources, my freedom are where I still do not accept myself. Where I am afraid to appear weak, vulnerable, sensitive,” says photographer Andrey Ignatov. Thanks to him, for almost two years now there has been a new kind of psychotherapy. It is not yet listed in catalogs and textbooks, but dozens of clients have gone down this path.

“Andrey was my client and started this project,” says psychologist Ekaterina Primorskaya. “Come on, he says, I will take pictures of other clients after the session. There are so many emotions! I objected: after the session they are tired, exhausted, they have their own processes, sometimes they are lost, they need to digest what happened to them.

She suggested experimenting: filming during the session. “Clients began to come who were waiting for an unusual session, they wanted to see themselves from the outside, the way others see them,” continues Ekaterina Primorskaya. – Mostly those who had not tried psychotherapy before, were afraid of it, did not know if it was needed at all. It was like a test with a leg of water: to touch psychology like this, gently, carefully.

Surprisingly, most of them remained in therapy: someone began to work with me, someone found another therapist. But most importantly, they went on to study themselves.”

Three people in the room: me and …

Initially, they worked with “photomodels” only in personal therapy. These were two sessions a week apart: just enough to digest what happened at the first meeting, where work was underway at the request of the client. With the difference that this time there were two more participants in the process in the psychologist’s office: the photographer and his camera.

In the second session, the client was shown photographs selected from the previous day. But they didn’t just show it. “Having looked at the resulting pictures, I suddenly realized that they can’t just be given away,” explains Ekaterina Primorskaya. – That a person can not cope with emotions, because here they are too strong.

What he lives from the inside directly during the session is one thing, but what he sees afterwards is quite another. And often it’s a shock. At this moment, the hero of the session needs to be supported, to discuss those emotions, to check how he felt then and now.

Why do photographs become a shocking discovery for many? Someone keeps a face all his life, being sure that he hides his feelings well. But the camera sees everything. And someone imagined himself quite differently. “I never thought that everything was written on my face,” one client admitted. Or another: “I didn’t know I had so many emotions. It seemed to me that I was an insensitive cracker.

All three – a psychologist, a photographer and a client – study the photo, discuss what happened at the time of shooting, what everyone felt then and now. It was this second stage that added a new impetus to the processes that took place at the first meeting.

“We began to think: why is the three of us such a force? Why do clients at some point stop thinking about photos and the photographer? Or, on the contrary, they somehow react. Who closes for a while, who gets in touch first with the photographer, and then with me, says Ekaterina Primorskaya.

– During our triple work, some patterns are played, and I asked the client a question: does the same thing happen in your life? Yes, they answer me, I don’t believe my mother, I only communicate with my father ”(it’s clear why he talks to the photographer, but not to me). Or “I don’t trust men, just like my father.” And then the photographer is sent to ignore, and they only talk to a female psychologist.

And it became clear that something else was emerging in this new space, coming out of the unconscious. But what? Co-therapist Ekaterina Primorskaya, psychoanalytic coach Yulia Lyanguzova has an answer to this question. The results of the research and analysis of the photopsychology tool were collected in a master’s thesis. A lot of what happens in the frame and behind the scenes can be explained from the point of view of psychoanalysis.

Be a healthy narcissist

In classical psychoanalysis, there must be two people in the psychologist’s office – the client and the therapist. The first shares free associations, and the second interprets them. But photopsychology relies not only on psychoanalysis. She complements the toolbox with psychodrama, body-oriented therapy, art therapy and creates two more important roles: photographer and … camera.

In each of us there is a narcissistic beginning, the so-called healthy narcissism. “Our self-identification is built on how the most important object looks at us – mom, and then dad. With the help of the gaze of the beholder, my image of “I” (self) is built, – explains Yulia Lyanguzova. And here comes our client. First of all, a make-up artist works with him, making the first contribution to his narcissism. Then a psychologist – the client can make a maternal or paternal transfer to him.

Then the photographer appears (this is a man, on whom the client also transfers unconscious projections). The gaze of the looking photographer is enhanced by the lens. And the lens itself creates a safe distance between the “I” of the client and the object (the photographer), while resembling a phallic symbol, enhancing the influence of the photographer. All this allows the unconscious to find its way out, triggering processes that, under other circumstances, might not open soon.

To give this primary narcissistic investment from three sides – from the psychologist, the photographer and the camera – is the task of the project. When one looks at the other, sending him a signal: “I see you, I hear you, I understand you, you exist.” The participants of the session give place to healthy narcissism, which, for some reason, is not enough for the client.

“This primary investment is disrupted in the first year of life, when, for example, the mother does not look at the baby while feeding, or there is no father who could tell his daughter: “You are my smart girl, my beauty.” In photopsychology, the re-creation of the self takes place, when the identification of oneself is collected piece by piece.

A female client associates a male photographer with dad. “His gaze helps to form the female intrapsychic space,” continues the coach. – And if the client is male, this is how his relationship with significant men in his life is launched: father, brothers, grandfather. There is a kind of retraumatization, but in a safe space and with the subsequent creation of a holistic “I”. This is the first stage. And on the second, the hero sees pictures.

REBUILD YOURSELF

If you find a suitable image, then it looks more like a room with many mirrors, when suddenly you see those sides that are not visible in the usual reflection of a mirror in the bathroom or in the corridor. This is a kaleidoscope of reflections that the client receives in the form of photographs.

“They are like a symbol, and symbols work very powerfully with the unconscious. If there was not enough primary narcissistic investment in childhood, then for such a person everything will be divided into good and bad, life and death, black and white. Black and white photographs, as a symbol of duality, pull out traumas that once happened. Through symbolization, deep processes are launched,” says Yulia Lyanguzova.

In the frames, clients often do not recognize themselves. Many did not know themselves at all. And after watching a long photo series and discussing it, it is as if the mosaic scattered throughout their lives is being assembled into a single whole. And a portrait of a real person appears – without masks, without roles.

Recently, Ekaterina and Yulia launched a photopsychology group format – a three-hour immersive action on stage. There are spectators in the hall who can take part: help to play someone, and then share what they saw during the conversation between the psychologist and the client or in photographs. And there are even more mirrors, like the eyes of beholders, enriching the image of the hero’s “I”.

“The whole mission of our project is about accepting the real one,” Ekaterina Primorskaya sums up. “Because when I’m honest with myself, when I admit who I really am, then I become happier.”