Powerful Photos Depict Veterans Who Use Art Therapy To Heal

[Bill Angel]

A quote from Carl Jung on the subject of "masks":

 

The persona, for Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, was the social face the individual presented to the world"a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual".

 

One wonders what Jung would have thought about the masks created by these veterans, as their intent in creating them was to reveal, rather than to conceal, aspects of their true nature as individuals.

 

See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/22/veterans-art-therapy_n_6526040.html

[Bill Angel]

Carl Jung in his essay After the Catastrophe (1945) discusses the situation of the Germans and the Nazi phenomenon.

A couple of observations from Jung could be relevant to the soldiers' artistic work documented in the article from the National Geographic (see link in previous post):

 

"...the tide that rose in the unconscious after the first World War was reflected in individual dreams [of my German patients], in the form of... mythological symbols which expressed primitivity, violence, cruelty: in short, all the powers of darkness."

 

"I was able to... observe how the uprush of dark forces deployed itself in the individual test-tube. I could watch these forces as they broke through the individual's moral and intellectual self-control, and as they flooded his conscious world."

Edited January 26, 2015 by Bill Angel

[StringJunky]

Great photos and I get the sense, through their creations, that they find the exercise very cathartic.

[robark]

A mask is a really powerful tool for demostration of emotions. Excellent photos.