Review Yourself: weekly meeting dedicated to the Videos Photos therapy with Oliviero Rossi.
In the help relationship we can use images, fixed (photograph) or in movement (video or movie). These pictures are autobiographical because we are interested in the psychotherapeutical part. Other uses of pictures can be therapeutic as well, but of course, working with personal image has a greater impact and a better chance of evocation than existence. Let’s suppose we can work with parts of ourselves, with the tracks and the map of our history. Let’s imagine that photographs can become enablers and evocative of the map of our existence. Attention, an old saying has it that “the map is not the territory”. And the autobiographical photograph is not the territory, but it is only a representation or an instant shot, a small footprint of our presence in the world. Well, where is the territory? In the eyes, mind and heart of those who look at that photograph. Looking at the picture, “the map”, I find the territory, something that is no longer visible and that is out of frame.
I can see three dimensions in the track on paper or in the display: the emotional one, the relational one and the one related to reality. And just the difference between photography and territory allows me to fill the image with meanings, and read what is no longer visible, but is inside of me. And I can see it again, get in touch with it and rethink about it when I compare myself with that track.
Translation edited by dr. Daniela Abbrescia
