DANIEL H. GALLAGHER, PhD
Psychotherapeutic sessions often involve internal representations and associations primarily for the client but often for the therapist as well. These associations are often partially experienced as internal images that are sometimes accompanied by sound. While some are distressing, up-heaving, disrupting and scarring; others are supporting, soothing and encouraging. Still images can “capture” snippets of time and experience in profound ways. Similarly, sounds and music can elicit strong connections of memory and emotion and/or offer integration, resolution, support. And yet, “still” images are often connected to multiple series of themes that are associated over time in our psyches. As music flows through melodies and beats/rhythms, it offers excellent accompaniment to our images, inviting them to “dance” together and thus creating more directed, meaningfully integrated storytelling. As neuroscience investigates these connections of sound and image more thoroughly, photographers, composers, musicians and producers can explore and present this work in artistic form. In some real sense, this process reflects the scientist practitioner model of psychology. I am pleased to have the opportunity to delve into this synergistic exploration.
12 Weeks: 9 Streets, 5 Towns, 1 Camera and Lens…and a MASK
(Video)
12 Weeks came about as a response to the initial Coronavirus “shut down.” My immediate older relatives lived through famines, extreme poverty, severe colonial rule, the global 1918 pandemic and World War II. They essentially survived and flourished so I wondered about the current societal panic which seemed to accompany the necessary responses to the spread of disease. My clinical training and practice also led me to wonder whether we were societally overemphasizing fear while discounting our strengths. In almost all new situations, there is much we could allow ourselves to recognize as familiar and supportive to deal with change and adversity. And so, I carried a camera as I traveled along the few streets needed for my newly highly restricted activities/locations. 12 Weeks attempts to engage viewers/listeners with the often unnoticed wonders all around us; wonders that remind us that beneath the romanticized representations we make of them lies tremendous strength to cope and thrive.