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Why did we choose these images?
We decided not to use photographs because they are too specific and therefore potentially excluding. We could not use paintings because of copyright, and so we decided to use photos of statues and ceramics that were in the public domain.
We wanted to show women alone/paired/in a group, and include a range of both cultural/ethnic identities and 'personas' or differing selves.
And we wanted it to reflect therapy, not literally, as with a photo of client and therapist, but metaphorically, creatively.
So we started (from the left) with a photo of the water nymphs in York House Garden, Twickenham. We felt the symbolic representation of both figures reaching out, one needing help and support, the other offering it, summarises the work of therapy. It shows the need to build trust and how frightening that is; will one be pulled into the water? Will one let go? They are both naked; perhaps this represents removing our disguises, our false selves, our masks. Maybe it represents our vulnerability.
Our second image ("First Secret entrusted to Venus" by Francois Jouffroy, 1839, Copenhagen, Denmark) builds on the essence of therapy which most usually involves two people in dialogue. But this dialogue is confidential, not public: thoughs and actions, beliefs, desires and fears that we may have shared with no-one, because they are too frightening, too shameful or too big. But holding onto our 'secret' may be slowly poisoning us, so we must find a safe, trustworthy person, to begin the process of release.
The third image, Pachamama (translation: mother earth or mother world) is from Brazil. She is the goddess of fertility and believed to cause earthquakes. She symbolises us as both mother and goddess, creator and destroyer, and in this ceramic has the triple form of maiden, mother and crone-our multiple selves over time.
The fourth image, from the Russian war memorial in Berlin, represents us as older, facing the sadness, loss and mourning that are inevitable as we age and lose those we love.
The fifth image, a wooden carving from Masai Mara in Kenya, represents our young, vulnerable self, the child within us that we may recognise or remember in therapy.
The sixth image, the Aspara dancers, carvings from the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, represents both ourselves in community, and also our duality: earthly and divine, erotic and spiritual. These dancers were often linked to creativity, vitality and fertility.
The final image on the right, to contrast with the eroticism of the previous image and the maternity of the third, is the Greek goddess Artemis (this particular statue is in Munich). She is the virgin goddess of the hunt, an archetypal lesbian image, representing our strength and independence.
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UK Therapist Locations
London:
Central, North, South, East
The South West
The South East
East Anglia
The East Midlands
The North West
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