Putting ourselves in the picture: Phototherapy, collaborative writing, and psychotherapy research

In this collaborative inquiry into collaborative writing approaches to psychotherapy research, following the artist Jo Spence, the authors bring themselves into the picture. They first set the context with their own histories as therapists and scholars, together with the history of therapy regarding research ‘about’ rather than ‘with’ and thus ‘them’ not ‘us’. They then undertake phototherapy and writing as collaborative inquiry. They each choose photos from their lives to engage with: one as children, one in their young adult years (late teens and 20s), and one from now, in their 60s. They consider these images and the stories that surround and arise from them, and they co-respond. The authors explore the possibilities this collaborative inquiry might have for re-thinking and re-framing psychotherapeutic research in these fragmented, atomised, polarised, fragile times.