PhotoTherapy Discussion Group

PhotoTherapy Discussion Group
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Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy

Posted by Nina M. Dalal on 11/20/2004, 2:35 pm

Do you have any information on phototherapy as a therapy to be used in brain injury? I am specifically thinking of a situation where an individual has lost the ability to recall visual memories, and cannot form new visual memories.
Thank you.

Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy

Posted by Judy Weiser, Administrator on 12/28/2004, 3:05 pm, in reply to "Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy"

Hello Nina,
I saw this message a while back and wasn't quite clear on who you meant by "you" in this search you wrote about. I waited to see if people would answer you but in this busy holiday season it seems that no-one has yet.
As this is a group discussion page, I'll keep this message short now, but in the future if you're writing particularly to me, perhaps email me directly "back-channel" for one-to-one correspondence... that address for me is:
jweiser@phototherapy-centre.com
Anyway, re: using PhotoTherapy in brain injury, I myself have not had experience with this kind of situation -- not because PhotoTherapy is not useful there, but because my own specialty fields are with street-involved youth, people with HIV/AIDS and Aboriginal/Native/Indigenous youth and addicts... So I have not worked in brain-injury situations myself.
However, I also have some experience using PhotoTherapy techniques with people living with various kinds of dementia, and I'd expect these things to be very similar in process and effect. Your question is a general one, and due to being very busy I cannot just type and type re: all kinds of various scenarios re: the kind of people you ask about -- however *IF* the person you describe can still understand what a photograph IS (and is supposed to represent), then I'm sure there are techniques that could be designed to assist them in "locating" the visual trigger in an emotional domain deep inside themselves (whether or not they can consciously "track" this enought to discuss it with you).
Sorry not to be of more help, but you're welcome to contact me for some Consulting back-channel if you want to continue the dialogue (though I'm not sure how much I can help).
and perhaps you'd like to add an addendum to your message (i.e., "reply" to your own message and title it "additional information about previous message above") -- wherein you explain a bit more about what this person is like, and what you are trying to accomplish as your goal in helping them -- that way maybe other people can make suggestions perhaps!
as I say, I was not clear about who the "you" was, when you asked about having info -- maybe others reading your message thought you were writing it to me, even though the Page Preface makes it clear that postings are supposed to be to the whole group??
also you might want to put "brain" or other terms into the Search Box on this page and see if other messages come up that would provide some info...
you might find the various postings about Alzheimer's and/or especially those by Katya de Luisa, to be helpful too
hope this helps,
Judy (Weiser)

Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy

Posted by Mark Wheeler on 1/11/2005, 7:04 am, in reply to "Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy"

As a registered art therapist, and PhotoTherapy practicioner for several years I may be in a unique position to offer some pointers. I suffered a "severe traumatic brain injury" in July 1998. It resulted in a year of complete retrograde amnesia and severral months of no new memories being made.
I was horrified to discover how little knowledge exists in this field the profesionals have to draw from. Some of my friends put together an album of photos & stories from my missing year while I was still in hospital (& had the cheek to invent a couple of amusing anecdotes too) and this was VERY valuable, and I still treasure it.
I still have considerable difficulty making new memories, but the brain is remarkably plastic, and new pathways do generate around the damaged tissue. Sadly when overloaded by stimulation the brain tries the old pathways and we often enter a void.
Global brain injuries (e.g. hypoxic injuries) cause less obvious symptomatic damage but are also more difficult to overcome.
The literature is scant and much of it useless or even misleading. Some of the recent work in neuropsychoanalysis (e.g. Solms & Kaplan Solms etc) is more useful. The SAP have run a couple of training days here in UK about treatment of children who have suffered traumatic abuse at preverbal age have actually informed me far more about brain injury and recovery than any of the head-injury literature.
Regular stimulation at a level suitable for the client (not too much) seems to be the best approach for recovery of the capacity to retrieve & process what memories exist (I now have a new narrative for my missing year co-constructed with others).
Making new memories requires research into what does & doesn't work for clients. I write essential info over & over & over & over again to try to "fix" it.
As you can see (I hope) the effort has been worth it.
Fel free to get in touch
Best wishes
Mark

Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy

Posted by Judy Weiser, Administrator on 1/11/2005, 9:52 am, in reply to "Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy"

Thank you VERY much Mark, for an enlightening posting. There is nothing quite like "information from the inside"!
I am particularly interested in one thing you mentioned: "treatment of children who have suffered traumatic abuse at preverbal age" -- could you please either elaborate a bit more and/or give us some recommended readings that would shed more light on this subject??
I aks because most of my clients for the past recent years have been people who are street-involved, usually addicts or ex-addicts, who are also dealing with HIV and Hep-C, and come from marginalized populations (in most cases Aboriginal/Indigenous people whose Native ways have been "forced under" several generations ago -- wit the result that their traditional child-rearing ways were lost in knowledge due to having been institutionalized in "residential schools" for one or two generations where they grew up away from their families and relatives and thus had NO "naturally-absorbed" knowledge of how to raise children.
This has frequently led to people having babies with no idea of what to do with them, and as a result there has been a lot of unfortunate trauma to infants by parents who knew not how to parent.
So MOST of my youth/adult clients come from a childhood where there has been a LOT of traumatic abuse at pre-verbal years -- hence my belief that memories stored in those years are coded in sensory forms/levels that words alone (i.e. solely verbal therapies) cannot access -- hence my other belief, that nonverbal therapies based on sensory perceptions are the BEST (and ONLY) way to "get in there to do the work" for what needs to be brought up to consciousness enough that they can be known, explored, externalized for resolution, and thus their power over the client lessened, if not dissolved...
... and PhotoTherapy techniques of course being (to me at least!) the best of these helping tools!
so I would really like to have you share more about this please..
Thank you,
Judy

Early Childhood Abuse & Brain Development

Posted by Mark Wheeler on 5/27/2005, 4:00 am, in reply to "Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy"

In response to judy's enquiry about work in the UK in the field of treatment of adults & children who have survived childhood abuse, Jean Knox, Margaret Wilkinson and Norma Howes have presented a number of training days in their evloving practice working with survivors of sexual abuse. In particular they describe the Traumatic Arousal Cycle and how this differs from non-traumatic memory based responses.
Dissociation is theunconscious process that develops to protect the survivors psyche from traumatic experience, but equally prevents the survivor from making secure attachmenhts. John Briere's "Child Abuse Trauma" (pub=Sage) is suggested reading, as is the Child Dissociative Checklist developed by Frank Putman MD.
Wilkinson, M.A. (2002?) "Undoing Trauma. Contemporary neuroscience: a Jungian clinical perspective" is the paper that summarises Margaret's presentations & clinical work, but I'm not sure when it appeared in the Journal of Analytical Psychology.
Knox,J.M. (2001) "Memories, fantasies, archetypes: an exploration of some connections between cognitive science and analytical psychology", Journal of Analytical psychology, 46,4,pp613-635
Further reading:
Schore, A.N. (2001) "The effects of early relational trauma on right brain development, affect regulation and infant mental health", Infant Mental Health Journal 22,pp201-269
Schore,A.N. (2001) "Minds in the making: Attachment" British Journal of Psychotherapy 17,3,pp299-328
are key papers in this field.
This is a fast moving field, but key texts lay the foundations regardless of future developments so HAPPY READING!
Mark

Re: Early Childhood Abuse & Brain Development

Posted by Mark wheeler on 4/18/2007, 2:34 pm, in reply to "Early Childhood Abuse & Brain Development"

Further to my previous reading list, I have read and can recommend the following:
Wilkinson, M (2006) Coming Into Mind: The Mind-Brain relationship: A Jungian Clinical Perspective, Routledge London & NY, a readable and useful book regardless of psychotherapeutic orientation.
O'Brien, F (2004) The making of Mess in Art Therapy: Attachment, trauma and the brain, Inscape Vol 9(1) pp2-13, a superb analysis of the impact of art interventions with children who suffered early relational trauma, written by a colleague
O'Brien, F (2003) Bella and the White Water Rapids, Inscape 8(1) pp29-41, my colleague's first account of the neurobiology of art therapy with children who've experienced abusive early relationships.
Cozolino, L (2002) The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy, W W Norton NY & London, more accessible than its title suggests.
Kaplan-Solms, K & Solms, M (2000) Clinical Studies in Neuroscience, Karnac London, hard work and 7 years old now but a good thorough introduction.
Schore, A (2000) Attachment, The developing Brain & Psychotherapy, paper presented at the Minds in the Making conference in London march 2000, this is the paper that started this line of inquiry for me.
I hope this is useful, especially as this is such a quickly evolving knowledge base.
Happy reading,
Mark

Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy

Posted by Anni Wakerley on 2/6/2005, 5:23 am, in reply to "Re: Brain Injury, Memory Loss and Phototherapy"

I have some experience of group and individual art therapy with brain injured adults at the Headway centre here in Jo'burg. I found it was amazingly evoking work, even for the more severley disabled members of the group.
The group consisted of motor vehicle accident (MVA)survivors, stroke and brain aneurism survivors, and dementia sufferers (general medical condition and drug-related).
Some created repetitive images of things they liked due to memory loss, but eventually moved beyond this. These images were often of family members, favourite holiday destinations, and safe spaces in nature.
I would imagine photo therapy could be equally useful, though probably more manageable in individual therapy, os a small group (perhaps 6 maximum).
I found it a challenge to meet the Headway attendees where they were, to see what worked. Each injury has different effects, depending on the brain area affected, and each personality's response to the disability is different.
hope this helps
warm regards
Anni