DO I ONLY EXIST IN THE EYES OF THE OTHER? A VISUAL ESSAY ON THE USE OF SOULCOLLAGE AS AN ART-BASED THERAPEUTIC PROCESS FOR SELF-RECOVERY.

Soul Collage arose in and spread through society from an artistic idealization developed by Seena Frost (2001). In short, the process can be interpreted, according to Epp (2016), as an artistic methodology which, if used therapeutically, has the scientific and subjective capacity to treat the psyche of a human being. This, considering the processes of selecting images, cutting them up and pasting them onto a predefined support. However, this whole process would be guided by a therapeutic trigger theme, previously designed by the workshop facilitator. As a result, it is hoped that the individual will perhaps be able to describe the process of creating the card that brings a cut-out and a collage of his soul, in order to make him feel the process, be crossed, as a possibility, by words, and suddenly re-signify his place of belonging. This article, in the form of a visual essay, presents a sequence of five therapeutic cards created in weekly SoulCollage sessions, carried out by the author of this essay in a mental health care facility located in the city of Recife, state of Pernambuco, Brazil. The meetings were held between March 25 and April 15, 2025. Its also worth noting that the themes were interconnected, seeking to take the patient through the process of purging an Other (Hall, 1997) that did not pertain to him, in search of na encounter with a Self that was rightfully his.