Looking Again and Beyond: The Power of Images in Intercultural Training in Youth Mental Health Care

Abstract

AbstractThis article explores the role of images in intercultural training in youth mental health care. Drawing on ethnographic work conducted with practitioners taking part in transcultural seminars, this article discusses how the attention paid to images during these meetings can enable practitioners to adopt a different way of looking at the families they work with. To do so, I draw from the writings of theorists who have reflected on how images work and the power they can have over us. I first turn to the Barthian notion of punctum, and then to Kaja Silverman's argument on the role of the aesthetic object in “educating our look.” Through an ethnographic vignette, I describe how images flow during a meeting and impact the people present. I argue that working with images in intercultural training is more productive in transforming the colonial gaze than making theoretical statements that trainees may interpret as judgmental.