De la symbolisation imagée au squiggle photographique

Abstract

Context

In the clinical accompaniment of non-verbal patients and/or those with limited capacities for symbolization, we find that the regular analytical “talking cure” has its limits. To counter this, the author proposes to develop a new therapeutic mediation based on the photographic act that could possibly replace, or at least complete, verbal exchanges. This article shows how the photographic medium can be mobilized within analytical cure.

Aims

This article questions how the photographic act can put the processes of the unconscious to work, unfold the singularity of the subject's speech, and how it can catalyze the transformation of the latter throughout the therapeutic process.

Method

It is first of all a question of rethinking the usual mediation of photolanguage, which offers “ready-to-use” representations. The author then presents a new mediation, called photonafshy, based on the photographic act. The subject himself produces his photographic images, which constitute a real open door to the preconscious and unconscious universe of the subject, far “beyond words.” The photographic images thus created, although relying on external perceptions, unconsciously solicit and transform internal archaic images. Clinical cases are analyzed to understand this phenomenon. The author then updates the squiggle technique – a set of drawings for two invented by Winnicott – by using the photographic medium instead of drawing.

Results

The new technique of the “photographic squiggle” sets up a semiotic field between two signifying presences that are the photos of the patient and of the analyst, and creates a shared game of symbolic and intersubjective exchanges that facilitates access to the most archaic layers of the pathic sensitivity. In this moment of photographic creativity, the subject can regress into a state of fluidity and experimental non-integration where the functions of gesture and gaze become, once again, modalities of being, as they are for babies at an archaic state.

Conclusions

“Photographic speech” can be considered a substitute for linguistic speech and is thus a relevant tool for clinical work with non-verbal patients. Photonafshy, a new therapeutic mediation using photography, proposes an approach to the photographic technè as a semiosis accompanying the therapeutic history, but also respecting the dimension of the suffering body. This approach allows us to go as far as possible in this state of regression in the confrontation with anxiety, in the most sustained, supportive, enveloping way possible and at the same time in the finest and most adjusted way.