Facades of Suffering: Clients' Photo Stories About Mental Illness

Abstract

In this article, photo stories are examined that were the result of working with photography as a therapeutic instrument dealing with suffering in mental health care settings. The purpose is to describe the role of facades in the process of suffering and acceptance. Clients took photographs, talked about them in group meetings, and exhibited them to a broader audience. Their photo stories were analyzed using a mixed-methods model. Data from two narrative approaches (semiotics and hermeneutics) were compared with information from other informants and official records to find discrepancies between the photo story and the real life context. Although facades are usually perceived as an obstacle for personal growth, the visual narratives revealed that facades can function as an alternative to common acceptance strategies, such as facing one's losses and reconciliation. Facades can create a distance between the person and the suffering. We conclude that visual narratives can reveal and foster agency in clients.

The Photo-Instrument as a Health Care Intervention

“…The moral meaning of these illness narratives consists in how patients struggle for authorship over their lifes. This struggle is symbolized in one’s personal narrative [45], reflecting (in the absence of exacerbation or remission of symptoms) quiesecence and homeostasis or an enhanced sense of self-efficay and rekindled aspiration [24, 45]. …”

Living with severe mental illness: perception of sickness

“…Patients may keep realistic images of their functioning in daily life and at the same time hold expectations about the future that are based on a more wished‐for life that comes closer to their ideas of their values, as we also found in the photo stories themselves (Sitvast 2010).…”

Self-management and Representation of Reality in Photo Stories

“…Our purpose, however, is to perform a summative evaluation of the photo instrument. In earlier studies, 24,36,40 it has already been described how the intervention works and what the outcomes are. Using a multiplecase design (N = 42) and a hermeneutic semiotic analysis of photo stories, interview texts, and observations, we were able to identify process and structural variables and how they were intrinsically linked up with outcomes (see later).…”

“…40 Some 24 participants formulated a new perspective that even 6 to 9 months after finishing the photo group was still held by at least 8 participants (those who were interviewed) and that had led to positive change in daily life in a number of cases. We observed that throughout the proceedings of the photo group sessions the call to express one's values in life and show who you are was picked up by participants and translated in a commitment to give a representation of oneself that almost never was banal and often resulted in a bravely frank testimony.…”

“…These actions form the methodological framework of the intervention, based on its narrative constructivist principles. 24,36,40 We have systematized them in Table 2.…”