Portrait Therapy

Dr Susan Carr is an art therapist, artist, writer and researcher, with 12 years' experience working in palliative care. She is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Art Therapy and is based in Swindon, UK.

This intriguing book turns the art therapy lens in the reverse direction - the art therapist painting portraits co-created with seriously ill clients, to help revalidate their self-identities. It is a fascinating book, thoroughly researched and well written.

• Foreword. Acknowledgements. Part I. Focusing the Gaze. 1. Setting the Scene: Introducing Portraiture as a 'Third Hand' Intervention. 2. Priming the Canvas: A Phenomenological Approach to Depicting Subjectivity. 3. Selecting the Medium: Portraiture as a Therapeutic Tool. Part II. Collaborative Case-Studies. 4. Portrait Therapy as a Collaborative Intervention: Paint Me This Way! 5. Increasing the Patients' Creative Capacity to Adapt to Illness. 6. Mirroring and Attunement through Portraiture: Intersubjective and Symbolic Ways of Knowing, Being and Relating. 7. Making Special, Making Meaning: Increasing the Lived Experience of Homelike-Being-in-the-World and Ontological Security. Part III. Portrait Therapy Protocol and Evaluation Methods. 8. A Therapist's Manual: The Three Phases of Portrait Therapy. 9. Making Connections: Evaluating Portrait Therapy. 10. Afterword: Drawing Conclusions. Appendix 1. Images used in the Portrait Reference Album (PRA). 2. Semi-structured end of project interview (EPI) questions used to evaluate portrait therapy. References.