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 Exploring how it feels to live with chronic and |
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Visual Psychology – Dr. Juanita Muller
'VisPsych' is a multidisciplinary approach that integrates psychological research methodology and photo documentary practice to extend research findings. 'VisPsych' uses images as findings to enhance understanding of experiences. Dr. Juanita Muller is a senior lecturer in psychology at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. Her background in applied psychological research and postgraduate studies in photo documentary at Queensland College of Art has resulted in; 32 publications in refereed journals and book chapters, 32 presentations at national and international conferences, 10 successful grant applications and awards, and 5 government research consultancies. Her recent work, 'Wounded not Conquered', on the experience of people living with mental illness has been exhibited in Brisbane and Beaudesert and has been published in the Griffith Review. Currently she is engaged in a historical project 'Honey and Bon', which explores the lives of turn-of-the century Queensland musicians, Ethel May Matthews and Wilfred Gregory Bessey. 'VisPsych' offers the reader the opportunity to both see and read the research findings, allowing for a more holistic understanding of the subject under investigation. The outcomes are image and text based, within a qualitative methodological framework. If you are interested in 'VisPsych' to enhance your own project, please contact me on j.j.muller@bigpond.com. I am available to join your research team or to complete projects on a consultancy basis. 'VisPsych' is most suitable for evaluations or investigations and in bringing the findings to the public domain. Whatever your topic – consider 'VisPsych' to tell your story!
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Background
The field of psychology emotions have been studied for over 100 years. Traditionally, the approach to this research has employed quantitative and, to a much lesser degree, qualitative methodologies. In doing so, the research has been limited to only those aspects of the human condition that can be captured, recorded and measured easily. The non-rational component of the human experience, often considered too fluid to research, has been overlooked. The use of alternative methodologies that address the affective domain have been ignored as having little scholarly rigor. In particular within the social sciences, the making of visual images, have been used extensively as a means of data collection but rarely as a research methodology. Photo documentary practice, a discipline that blends ethnographic research methodologies, investigative journalism and the politic of the aesthetic, relies on visual images to capture emotional experiences; but only recently has there been a push to consider this as legitimate research method. Together these two disciplines could extend current methodologies, to broaden and triangulate existing psychological methodologies and to enhance photo documentary research. This innovative multidisciplinary approach can be used to forge the new methodology of visual psychology, 'VisPsych' to enhance current research in many areas.
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Wounded not Conquered – An Exhibition of Photographs 'Wounded not Conquered' is the culmination of a three-year interdisciplinary study combining psychology and photo documentary practice into a new and innovative discipline – 'visual psychology'. Through this discipline I hope to do much more that simply record and/or describe aspects of the human condition. By working collaboratively with the participants, I seek to tell the story of the lived experience of those who have a chronic and serious mental illness and live in the community in hostels and boarding houses. Visual psychology combines traditional methods used in the social sciences with the culture of aesthetics to allow knowledge to be presented as an amalgamation of the rational and the non-rational dimensions of cognition. Traditionally, the public sympathises with those who are marginalised within our community, 'Wounded not Conquered' asks the reader to become intimately aware of the detail that makes up the lives of the participants and through this intimate knowledge become a stakeholder in their lives. Thus, visual psychology seeks to have the reader ′know′ through empathy rather than sympathy. A number of individuals voluntarily allowed me into their lives to conduct this research. Sadly, three have now passed away. Let these images stand as recognition to these people – they are more than their illness, they are wounded not conquered. |
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| Photos may not be reproduced or copied without permission. Please contact j.j.muller@bigpond.com. Living with Mental Illness Series - © Copyright 2009 Dr. Juanita Muller. |
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Courier Mail Media release - Deborah Marshall, Griffith University, 16 January 2008 Photographs evoke emotional stories. A photographic exhibition capturing the lived experience of those with serious and chronic mental illnesses will be on display at the Queensland College of Art from January 17-27 2009. 'Wounded not Conquered' by Griffith University senior lecturer, Dr. Juanita Muller, is the culmination of a three-year inter-disciplinary study combining psychology and photo-documentary practice. Dr. Muller worked with the residents of hostels and boarding houses to capture the complex and multi-dimensional layers of the lives of those diagnosed with a mental illness. The result is a series of 22 photographs depicting their lives. "I aimed to extend traditional psychological research to bring out findings using images to enhance our understanding of their experiences," Dr. Muller said. "Using visual psychology provides a new way for individual stories to be told in context. It explores how it feels to suffer from chronic, serious mental illness and exist on the margins of our community." |
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| Testimonials
"Juanita's images reward careful close reading. They contain many subtly interwoven stories - hangovers of institutional life and deadening daily routines, inside the residences everywhere there are distressing signs of poverty and social isolation. Living with mental illness obviously takes a heavy toll. But we can also see traces of individual courage and personal expression in precious possessions thoughtfully arranged around a bed and in simple but treasured freedoms of being able to choose to sit and yarn or dream the day away". Professor Anna Haebich, multi-award-winning historian and author of 'Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000' and her new book, 'Spinning the Dream, Assimilation in Australia 1950-1970.' "The work is powerful and effective – it creates new boundaries with regard to the often-restricted nature of psychological analysis" Dr. Peter Davis. |
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