Research documentation

Review # 3

Revealing the Process

Mrunmayee Gokhale
Visual Communication Design
Project brief:

Explore sensorial therapies by developing a fictitious therapy. This therapy can

become a device in a form of a graphic/interactive narrative (fiction) to create
a dialogue for interaction to maximize well being.

Personal statement:

I have always been attracted to the human mind cause of the element of
unknown attached to it, which makes it very inquisitive and captivating to
explore. This mind is where emotions, behavior, imagination, thoughts and
many cognitive processes can be experienced. And therapy directly taps this
very mind to treat or heal an emotional and behavioral disorder (if any).
Thus, it is very interesting to explore how the disorder (action) and its remedy
(reaction) are both generated from the same mind through senses.
 Understanding the mind body equation |
Placebo – a psychological effect

Head
Placebo

Medicine
Body

Conversational data gathered and consolidated. (Understanding belief:

what it is? Where all does it occur? How it occurs? How people per-
ceive and respond to it?)

How belief/faith may occur at all levels - spiritual, psychological, phi-

lospohical, social, religious.

People spoken to :

An astrologer, a homeopath, a transactional psychotherapist

Conversation with astrologer

A few pointers after the conversation:

• A special connection to God attained through meditataion

• His methods are godly approved, not science approved.

Possible placebo? The story goes like this: A doctor came to him once and
he was wearing rings and he complained about the sleeplessness and a severe
headache. The astrologer asked him to remove a particular ring and asked him
to sit calmly for ten minutes. After 10 min, he doctor replied that he was feel-
ing much better.

Observation/Inference:
In this case, it was more like the doctor was expected to feel better/relief after
removing the ring and the result was positive.

Belief seen as spiritual occurence as strong belief in God.

From the story he told, it was easy to infer how the astrologer uses the ‘ex-
pectancy technique’ which takes place as a placebo effect.
Conversation with the Homeopath
Role of a Homeopath

To create a receptive state of mind = understanding the cause and effect equa-
tion + indicative medicines.

Possible placebo?
• Positive energy in the form of motivation acts as a placebo (theory # 3)
• Belief is a motivational push to the‘vital force’ to bring about a placebo ef-
fect.

When this awareness is brought, the patients themselves come up with solu-
tions. (Possible placebo?)

Observation/Conclusion:
All people need sometimes is a motivation/external push to the vital force
present within for a placebo effect to take place.
Inferences/Conclusions through Research
A psychology experiment was conducted to test the placebo effect

Placebo - A result of proposed theories

Result of Expectancy Effect: Subjects will expect a given result and will there-
fore report that result.

Result of Classical Conditioning: People are conditioned to associate a par-

ticular stimulus with a particular response.

Motivation to feel better and cooperate with an experimenter to be the ulti-

mate cause
Analysis
Interpretations of a placebo effect:

“Perceiving a reality but questioning that reality, whether it is real or preten-

tious” - Nupur

“Placebo – something not real, pretends to be something and poses itself to be

real…End result – a placebo takes place.” – Mr. Ravindra

What’s ironic about a placebo is that, it is something not real, but makes peo-
ple believe it is real. And this effect is one of the most exploited in therapy.

Brainstorm:

1. How can color be used to tap into the subconscious. Application?

2. How is stress handled in art therapy?

3. What are the ways /devices to express stress in art therapy?

4. When and how use of / need to construct of image in order to express one’s
feeling?

5. Do patients construct the images?

6. The therapist who shows pictures to understand their state of mind? Either
way,

7. How can Color be used to control mood/build up to expect an emo-

tion? (climax music?)
8. How/in what ways a patient’s state of being is identified?

9. While practicing art in therapy– looking at color, image construction.

10. What are the ways in which color be used as stress management/relief ?

–––––––––––––––––

Looking at working of Psychology

• Effects of colour

• Effects of constructed image

• Sound

• Possible Metaphors

The Form is going to be the link that makes the placebo happen

Using art in therapy as a resource – may understand how art thera-

py (color, image, construction of an image, as an experience) is used in a more
scientific way to understand how imagery can trigger off my own form, which
is going attempt a placebo.
Questioning Myself
My placebo is going to address what? - stress.

So, according to the three conditions mentioned above, I need to create a

condition (stress related) where the need to address it will arise, creating a
condition for a placebo to take place.

How is the problem of stress addressed in art therapy?

What is that a person is made to talk, draw, think, act?

How is the person made to express his/her stress?

3) What does the form do?

Help me use my learning and constraints in an efficient manner to meet the

goal of creating a placebo.

Make people believe their stress is gone by creating an illusion.

The big question: Why am I doing this? Using my learning of art, design,
space, and electronics in a very therapeutic approach to create an installation
on placebo?

My constraints:

Color
Image/constructed image
Light
Touch (may be)
Premise: Art in therapy

1. What is art in therapy?

2. How is it used?
Show initial rough sketches of ideas and references gathered

References:

Christian Boltonski–
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsKZlDOB-1o&NR=1

Paul Chan–
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG5KkXOr-rE&feature=related

Milwaukee Art Musuem - Act-React–

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHXw1niqvPs&feature=related
Key words derived from the phenomenon: Broader
Concepts:
Idea of perception, action reaction, belief, human response to (Inert)
stimuli, appearances, measured and controlled deception, illusion, posi-
tive effect

Exploring the idea of Belief

Out of 10 people, 2 to 3 people said that they beleve in God. The rest 8 said
that they believe in themselves.
this group of people also forms the majority of the educatedurban living
modern people.

“I believe in myself ”

Reflections:
After thinking, I started to question who is this ‘I’ and who is this ‘Myself ’.
Could these two subjects be separated from each other?

If one believes in oneself - the phenomenon of placebo effect seems like just a
mechanism to make the believing happen.
Why the separation of “me” and “him”?

Placebo effect is a psychological effect. The body is looking for an effect to

take place. After the intake of the sugar pill, the body believes that that the
sugar pill is healing it. So the healing happens, just that it is the body that
heals itself, not the sugar pill.

The process of healing itself – to translate this process into a space, the il-
lusion that ‘you’ are separate from ‘me’. It is a self-generated process, which
means the action and the reaction, are both generated in the body itself. And
the body is actually healing itself sub-consciously.

Now in order to think in terms of a space the first idea was to separate the
subconscious and the conscious i.e ‘he’ and ‘me’ respectively. Start a dialogue
between ‘he’ and ‘me’.

Attributes of a mirror = illusion, perception, action reaction, the idea of what

you see is what you believe, response to stimulus, conditioning, controlled
measured deception, separate ‘You’ from ‘you’, appearance.
Initial sketches

Collagy sketches – intuitively done

Why mirror?
A mirror as a metaphor to separate you and him (inner you) because while
studying the phenomenon of a placebo, one thing got confirmed that it is You
who heals yourself. And all you need is that external stimulus (sugar pill in
which you believe) to start the action of healing yourself (reaction).
Free Writing:
A quick poem to churn out intuitive thoughts (Being therapeutic with one-
self )
Can I name this poem Catharsis or “Emotional Catharsis”

Looking in a mirror, I saw myself for the first time,

Looking in the mirror, I asked myself, why is it that I always whine?
Looking in the mirror, I said, I don’t feel so good today.
Looking in the mirror, came a reply, don’t get the smile off your face this way.
Looking in the mirror, I raised my finger and felt angry. I shouted, “Don’t tell
me how to think”
I tell you, “I don’t need a shrink”
----------------

What came out of the writing was the possibilty of a conversation/ a dialogue
with yourself in the form of a narrative.
Now in order to think in terms of a space the first idea was to separate the
subconscious and the conscious i.e ‘he’ and ‘me’ respectively. Start a dialogue
between ‘he’ and ‘me’.

Equating the above scenario to a placebo effect scenario

The patient believes in the sugar pill (inert substance) which acts as a stimulus
and the patient heals himself

The Person starts to follow his own reflection which he sees through the
mirror (inert stimulus)
From the Student’s Dictionary of Psychology - Further Research - solidifying
the groundwork for a narrative.

What is the subconscious/Preconscious mind?

Conscious mind?

Stimulus-response learning?