JOYCE HOUSER, MA, MFT
Now more than ever, we as psychotherapists are a much-needed resource to help people find their way through the chaos of pandemic, political turmoil, and climate crises.
This piece is both personal as well as social, created in response to the protests taking place all over the world this year.
Protest is not new to me, as I was a student at U.C. Berkeley during the Vietnam War era. I participated in the exhilaration of joining a peaceful, collective voice, only to be demoralized by the National Guard who dispersed us with tear gas. Violence pulled focus away from the cause, as it has often done during the current protests.
Similarly, in psychotherapy, distractions pull our clients’ attention away from the deeper emotional issues they need to resolve. It is our task to continually refocus them on the central themes.
SOUND OF SIRENS
(Photo Collage/Written Word, 16.5” x 22.5”)
In response to the protests, I was moved to write “Sound of Sirens,” alternative lyrics to the song Sound of Silence.
For this piece I superimposed that text onto photographs I took during and after protests occurred in Santa Monica. One of the images is of the building in which my office is located, boards covering the door after its glass was broken.
In the background is the faint image of a prison, referring to the feelings of oppression and confinement so pervasive now.
In the latter half of the collage the lyrics become more optimistic, as do the images taken in the days following the violence.
My intention in this collage, as in my work with clients, is to first reveal the pain of a situation or issue but then to move through that pain in the direction of hope.
Let us make change happen both personally as well as socially, so that out of chaos we can find our way, and that non-violence can still prevail.