Hello to all. Good to see phototherapy moving into the workshops being organized the last year or so. I am going to try and keep this brief but I wanted to share something that I've taken awhile to put together and just a bit of insight. Back in 2007, Judy was kind enough to review a preliminary thesis paper I sent to her (actually a project that was tested in a college class on violence against women), but I felt I never really completed the main thrust of it. I had proposed the use of digital multimedia video, not for recording therapy so much as for assisted client self-expression. But at the time I only had "slide show" level of skill myself.
So, being in a Music Technology degree program, I tweaked the project to make the final version into an exploration of how music teachers and students could express responses to music on websites or to accompany performances. Deep inside, I just knew that for therapy as for musicians, a flat "slide show" wouldn't carry the idea of "mental energy" but at the time I didn't know how to solve the gap between still art which most people can find or make, and the video medium where we are trained to expect at least some level of animation.
The last three years have let me explore how non-musician populations of mostly adolescents like to make "art" without being real "artists," and to continue teaching myself an assortment of video editing techniques. I am no therapist but I have seen people greatly helped by therapy and somehow my own background in music & photography, and my interest in art therapy and dream interpretation came together to hatch this idea. It might go nowhere but it's time to communicate again.
In the links below are a little group of test files that I kept fooling with since the first study…and which I think are a better completion of the original thesis idea. I was helped further when I ran across the "vision board" movement and also by finding an internet tool where people make collages on line using a tool to "grab" components from anywhere on the web without having to invest in software. I asked my students in a junior college music appreciation course to use it and they seemed to like it.
Regards- I say more following the links but some of you may want me to stop already LOL! Anyone with more technical questions or interest, contact me via my Facebook email. -LW
Continuing for anyone still interested: the files are my attempt to solve the problem of displaying the contributions of what I pretended were three imaginary "clients" who had furnished their images or clips to me as a "producer" with no knowledge of their deeper identities. In this model it would be possible to act as a media helper by relay of the images from a therapist (or the person in email) without violating privacy. Since the images would usually be "stills," either taken from the web or scanned from magazines or from the person's past family albums, I had the problem of learning techniques to make them blend and tell more of a "recovery story," and used animation in a limited way and in the background (as if the background was the "healing activity" or "mind"). The person would be a co-creator and could keep the file as an inspirational file for a personal computer or to run on a desk "frame." Maybe because of the work involved, it would be more practical as a "group therapy" project with blended result of all the insights gained.
Obviously this wouldn't appeal to all personality types and I'm more aware of female tastes so my samplers aren't likely to be as "action packed" as male personalities might relate to. I just think it could have some potential. Even if a client didn't want to do the collection stage, he/she could make a list such as "I want to have a dog image, a balloon, and a piece of cherry pie" that would be meaningful in a personal way, and the producer could just find the images and furnish a sequence from a list.
I'll admit the results are a little unpredictable but if used for personal consumption and not republishing, I think would be safe from copyright problems. A person could even choose a "favorite" theme music but that might be best to just add from one's own desktop.
Meanwhile, anyone wanting to re-post or email my links, please refer to them as a final thesis revision since I'm hazy now on where I got all of the components, but I think they are covered by fair use as the work was not done with commercial intent nor is it out on the greater web other than given here and maybe at the facebook group.
Re: Geeky idea I wanted to share (re: client-made videos from still image combining)
Leslie, (I have added to your original title so that it will be more clear to future readers, WHAT your message is about... hope you don't mind!)
Responding to both parts of your message now:
1) re: "Good to see phototherapy moving into the workshops being organized the last year or so."
I am please that you are pleased re: my Workshop teaching -- but please note that this is not just in the last year or so -- I have been teaching about a dozen workshops each year for over a decade now and increasingly in countries outside North America. Recent ones (past two years) have included: England, Finland, Russia, Mexico, Italy, etc etc... and my next one will be in Florence Italy (want to come??? )
You can always find my Workshop schedule on the "Training and Education" page of my website ("PhotoTherapy Techniques in Counseling and Therapy").
2) re: the project you are sharing, it's an interesting idea -- and (although you may not realize this), many people are doing what is, these days, called "Therapeutic Film-Making".
It's a parallel term to "Therapeutic Photography" in contrast with "PhotoTherapy".
Just like PhotoTherapy (photos used during therapy sessions, as directed by a trained therapist), there is also "VideoTherapy (video used actively during a therapy session -- not just to passively record, but also for doing things like immediate playback of a moment that just happened during the session, and for creating spontaneous role-plays and then viewing them, and for seeing yourelf "live, in motion", just as others see you -- rather than left-right reversed as mirrors do it, etc etc)...
and just like "Therapeutic Photography (or "Therapeutic Art-Making") activities, there are dimensions to these image-based explorations that are able to be done by people for themselves, or in groups or community efforts, where it's more "making art to make sense and explore issues, cultures, and other people"...
So I see "Therapeutic Videography" (or "Therapeutic Film-Making") -- or in your case almost the technique of photo-collage moved into the territory of motion, rather than still....
The best I can tell from what you wrote (since I could not open any of the links you provided) is that you are suggesting that clients could benefit from being able to use their own creative combination of "found" imagery, set in motion (and with a music background if they want), in order to tell a story without words, about their own lives, feelings, etc...
If this is correct, you might want to check out "digital storytelling" and various clients-make-videos websites, as not all those people use the camera to capture something live. Many actually do create their own films using still images and animation or motion...
But thanks for sharing your ideas...
and if you can ever get those videos able to be seen, let us know -- but PLEASE test out the links first next time, to be certain they will work! ;-)
Judy
Re: ( client-made videos from still image combining)
Judy, what a neat thing that digital media has some potential like this!
And while embarrassed that you had trouble, I assure you I did test the links and they worked fine on my computer. Also I asked my son in a distant city to do that after hearing about your problem, and his reply was "I'm not having problems. They do take about 10 seconds to load so maybe some people could be impatient, or they could have a problem with their multimedia settings."
But your problem did sound worse than a delay so I don't have an explanation. For anybody else here that encounters that from the first post, maybe this page link I also gave on facebook will be better (it will show a list of films, then you should get a "player" that works like any web film after you click on the dot to the left of the title). Just be sure to give the file a few seconds to "load" after that:
I figured out the problem -- and before I explain, let me tell you that these are BEAUTIFUL!!!
Of course, my therapist-brain immediately wants to know things like: "did YOU create the collages, or did they? Or did you, under their direction?"
and also, of course, wanting to know the "why" of each image-step of this process...
the fix: I had been using my usual Browser (FireFox) to try to load your site pages and I decided to try the link in Safari (alternate Browser) and it worked FINE on Safari!
So when other people tell you the links don't work (I tried it several times on different day with FireFox; failed to work), you can suggest they use a different Browser. And no I have no idea why it won't work on FF.
** ALSO possibly useful info: When I did get to that main page, and saw the list, and clicked on the name of the film and got that page, nothing happened.
So I finally decided to risk clicking on the "download" button, figuring that I could then open it somehow from what downloaded into my computer.
Imagine my surprise when NOTHING downloaded at all -- but then the window switched to the online-viewing version -- so again you might want to share this info when you tell people about this...
Re: ( client-made videos from still image combining)
Wow, yes that is a real help. I have been using the service mainly for music stashing of my piano compositions but sometimes also videos to express the music. Who knows what people have been able to see or not. But now I'll know to add the warnings.
Thanks also for the comments, and about the other questions in a nutshell: I got the collages from a site where what I'd guess to be mainly 14-18 year olds share their collages. I had to create the moving backgrounds, collect stills etc., process all artwork to make various transition effects, then combine them all in a video editing software to work out overlays, dissolves, and timing. It hasn't been an easy path because naturally all those software products are "loaded" with features but while I only needed selected operations, there was no way to "head straight" for what was in my imagination. So I had to patiently go through hours of tutorials, read further, try experiments, and ask or explore when I hit snags, before I felt like I had a basic array of skills.
In real practice, ideally a client would collect images or make her own artwork ... but I could see the editor gradually collecting some standard material. I also imagine to prevent any emotional harm from the process, the therapist would make sure which client it could help, in the sense of steering away anyone overly sensitive to images or in a depressed or suicidal state, etc. In a counseling service, the editor person most likely wouldn't meet any client personally for privacy reasons.
I made the themes for these generally while thinking of a young person I know who came through some issues and has an interest in violin. In fact, maybe some of the remembered younger "me" is in there....but they were also a way of testing a variety of techniques so the group would work like a "sampler" of what could be done.
I don't know if I'm going to get up the nerve, but I was thinking about approaching a service where I live that is geared to women clients and doing it on a volunteer basis.
One other issue is copyrights. I tried to never use a whole image from any site which resides on the web for the purpose of selling art (a "gallery") but obviously it's hard to know whether the collages have taken excess liberties in that area. In spite of my saying that a client could be given a "finished with therapy" file for personal use, there would be no real way to control its eventual redisplay on a personal blog, which could expose the therapist or editor to a complaint about some image innocently included.
My understanding of "fair use" is that if you use only a minor detail area from an original, you transform it further, and there is no reduction in the original sales potential or competition with the first artist, and no intent to harm, it should be safe. But fair use is a gray area. I'm rethinking this and probably would advise anyone interested in testing the process, to only let a client SEE the work at a viewing monitor in private at a session, and not take a copy away. Or maybe a therapist/practice could allow a seat in a waiting room that holds a variety of samples that clients agree to share among themselves or with visitors. But I'd just advise caution on that issue.
Re: ( client-made videos from still image combining)
I just read more on a LinkedIn topic today about digital art therapy where people were discussing the copyright problem and found that Judy had posted there herself and of course is way ahead in researching this. The thing is, what seems reasonable and ethical to the average person is not how some artists react.
I've seen discussions among artists who are outraged over people reusing any fragment of an image they produced, even if the infringement was just a teenager making a collage, and they point out that they don't have to add a watermark; their work is already copyrighted. Others in the same discussions were more laid back and expected that kind of borrowing to happen through the internet, so I guess this is an area that will take awhile to resolve. I sure didn't mean to sound like any expert on it myself, and it can be sort of "scary."
Leslie, I'm glad you found that other discussion -- I was just about to suggest it, in my reply!
You are correct, the world is changing and the paradigm of how photos are perceived and used, has shifted massively with both the newer technologies, and the social-networking populations who use them in very different ways, with very different understandings about their meaning (and about what "ownership" means!).
I was just recently writing about this (in more detail than here) for a Chapter I'm just finishing, where I discuss my thoughts about "the future of PhotoTherapy and Therapeutic Photography"...
If you want to contact me in about a month, when it is finished, I'd be happy to share additional thoughts with you as a professional using photos in therapeutic interactions ( and also as a professional photographer who is VERY strong about my own intellectual property rights and copyrights!!)
ALSO IMPORTANT...I have just realized that when I re-titled this topic thread on this Discussion page, I titled your concept incorrectly: In describing what you are doing, you are clear that you are making these videos (and thus choosing the images) -- while I originally thought that the clients where choosing them and making all editorial decisions...
And that is a BIG difference to me, therapeutically...
"your" way, it is like having clients work with the "Photo-Projective" technique of PhotoTherapy, working with "images-provided-by-the-therapist" -- and thus selected through the eyes (filters) of the therapist (i.e., not originally selected by the client)
whereas the way that *I* thought you were doing this (having THEM pick the images and work actively with them, to create the video), is more like the PhotoTherapy Technique of "Photos By the Client" ("by" meaning either taken by them with their camera, or appropriated by them in re-using "found" imagery...
LASTLY, regarding your concern with issues of rights and intellectual property / image-ownership issues (and permissions), you can very easily solve this by using images selected (by you or by the client) from "stock photos" websites such as www.istockphoto.com/ -- where you can simply (and legally) take and then reuse photos from the website without having to worry about any problems in doing this, as that is their purpose. Most are able to be taken and re-used for free; others for a small fee...
Yes, not having any clients and just wanting to test the technique, I selected the components, but in a "real life" use, it could be the other way around. So if the therapy setting could furnish means for the client to make and/or select images, then an outsider or staff person could do the rest of the work (who I was calling the "editor"). In time I wouldn't be surprised if software comes down enough in price and simple enough in operation to allow some clients to even complete the other steps themselves.
That's a useful tip from Judy. I use Firefox on Mac and PC and Safari on both too and i usually find the reverse situation. What won't work on Safari will work on Firefox, so it is useful for all of us involved in global exchanges about Phototherapy to know that these simple workarounds exist
