Fundamentals of phototherapy

Phototherapy is one of the areas of art therapy that uses photographs, thematic images, metaphorically associative maps in the process of psychological assistance. The perception or creation of photographs has a developing and healing effect, helps to clarify and solve the psychological problems of the client. In phototherapy, first of all, what is important is not what is shown in the picture, but what emotions, thoughts, memories, experiences this image evokes. Phototherapy is seen as an interconnected system of image-based counseling techniques, because phototherapy is more image-communication than photography-art. In phototherapy, the process of counseling is based on the fact that the picture is an integral image, fully reflecting the state of the person at the moment. The image enables psychological transformations with reality and its reflections, choose from it what is most interesting and important, creatively combine different elements of the situation and even create your own new reality. People look at a photograph and make up their own minds about what is depicted through individual experience, so we can say that we see what we want.
The following methods of phototherapy work:
1. Photos and images found or created by the client.
2. Photos of the client are taken by other people and self-portraits.
3. Family photo albums and other photo collections.
4. Photo projections.
Any image perceived by a person evokes reactions that are a projection of his internal map of reality, determining how much meaning they attach to what they see. These methods underlie all interactions between the client and the image, and are primarily related to the ways and reasons why the individual somehow understands the essence of any photograph. The meaning is always projected onto the image by the observer, and there are no universal, objective meanings of the images.
Therefore, the “true” content of phototherapy is not contained in the photograph itself, but in the interaction between the image or art card and the client, in the process of which each forms his own unique idea of ​​​​what he saw. The best way to understand the practice of phototherapy is to remember that photographs, images, art cards are primarily metaphorical and symbolic. Yes, that any photograph or image can be a certain stimulus and catalyst in a successful counseling process.
Boreychuk Irina