The Visual Life Story Approach: A Tool for Transformation and Well-Being in Museum Art Therapy With Immigrant Adults (L’approche visuelle du récit de vie : un outil de transformation et de bien-être en art-thérapie muséale auprès d’adultes immigrants)

Figures & data

Figure 1. The two regions of the visual life story approach.

Figure 2. Example of symbolic expression as a factor of change.

Figure 3. Example of symbolic expression as a factor of change.

Figure 4. Example of relational esthetics as a factor of change.

Figure 5. Example of relational esthetics as a factor of change.

Table 1. Therapeutic factors in museum art therapy.

1. Factors of change in group art therapy	2. Therapeutic factors in the artistic process	3. Existential factors
Symbolic expression Synthetic representation of lived experience.	Integrative function Of life story and artistic process.	Personal responsability
Relational esthetics Triangular relationships between participants, artworks, and leaders.	Autonomy Artistic and visual life story process.	Aloness
Embodiment Of emotions, feelings and experience into personal artworks, after viewing exhibits.	Giving meaning To one’s lived experience.	Guilt
Pleasure & playfulness	Spontaneity Letting go.	Freedom
Ritual Therapeutic framework & space.	Unexpected emergence Of new meanings, reconfiguring life story.	Death Inevitability of suffering and death.

Figure 6. Example of embodiment as a factor of change.

Figure 7. Example of pleasure and playfulness as a factor of change.

Figure 8. Example of pleasure and playfulness as a factor of change.

Figure 9. B.’s sense of inner fragmentation and her reparative work through collage.

Figure 10. Tearing and reassembling the pieces into new configurations.

Figure 11. Broken mirror getting mended trough art, allowing it to reflect new realities.

Figure 12. R.’s experience of rebirth from her own ashes.

Figure 13. A.’s experience of letting go and spontaneity.

Figure 14. Remembering, and poetizing experience.

Figure 15. N.’s representation of his life as a fragile spiral.

Figure 16. Dangerous encounter in a zoo with a tiger’s open mouth.

Figure 17. N.’s first memory of loss of innocence: getting stolen.

Figure 18. N.’s memory of a close relative’s suicide.

Figure 19. N.’s image of his father, made in the past from a photograph.

Figure 20. Reworked image with father’s negative word between the lines.

Figure 21. Portrait of N.’s mother as an infinity symbol.

Figure 22. A childhood memory: feeling like an electron revolving around an atom.

Figure 23. An evolving sense of light, stability, and protection.

Figure 24. N.’s self-portrait as a joyful child.

Figure 25. A childhood memory of the opening image of a TV show.

Figure 26. The words of a song expressing N.’s desire to live his own life.

Figure 27. B.’s sudden awareness of the finitude of life as she was playing badminton with her friends.

Figure 28. Gluing legs to her collage, an expression of N.’s feeling of growing roots.

Figure 29. View of N.’s two collages during the group revision of N.’s artworks.

Figure 30. R.’s representation of spirituality as strength.

Figure 31. The Tasmanian devil, a representation of resourcefulness (left) and other significant symbols of R.’s life story (right).

Figure 32. The sewn letter that expresses B.’s sense of incommunicability regarding her father.