Portrait Therapy: Supporting Client Voices of Self-Identity

Abstract

Portrait therapy entails an art therapist co-creating portraits of patients diagnosed with life-limiting illnesses and exhibiting it in a museum art gallery. A description of portrait therapy practice draws on the portraits, collages, and prose poems of two patients, along with feedback from exhibition visitors and patients’ families. For patients, portrait therapy provides control over how they are seen, opportunity to reevaluate life, and enable a sense of continuity. For visitors, portrait therapy raised awareness of suffering, identified shared human emotions, and facilitated bereavement.