10.23
Reflection: After last week’s tutorial I realized that I should start organizing my blog. I have previously written all my content on a post. It’s hard for people who don’t know my project to understand what I’m doing. So I’ve split my content into three posts based on units.
After my conversation with the counsellor last week, I intend to change my intervention slightly. According to my interview with Dr. Wang, if someone in my workshop develops too much unbearable negative emotion, they will need more professional counseling. So after this workshop I will provide the contact details of several counsellors who are available for counselling for those with more serious psychological problems.
This week I found one new stakeholder whose name is Rachel. She is also an interpreter and tattooist. She is also very concerned about female self-esteem and rejects the male gaze. She took to her social media to share the stories of her tattoos and some of her thoughts on body image.
Interview with Rachel
Q:What do you think about appearance anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)?
A: I think that appearance anxiety is something that everyone experiences and there is no way to get rid of it completely. Because we can’t avoid thinking about it when we’re talking to people or buying clothes or whatever. But it’s okay! We have to accept that and it’s normal to be bothered by such physical appearance issues.
Q: Do you think tattoos (including the process of designing and drawing them) can have positive effects on women’s self-esteem and body image?
A: For tattooing, it has helped me become more confident. I believe it will also work for some women than for all of them. I think tattoos play a role to help. It can be an opportunity for you to get to know yourself again. But it also requires women to be aware of their own inner strength to become more confident and independent rather than just relying on tattoos.
After my interview with Rachel I realized that we treat tattoos like medicine. We can’t expect that getting a tattoo like a pill will immediately improve a woman’s self-esteem. Also tattoos are not guaranteed to work on every woman and improve their self-esteem. What tattoos can do is help some women rediscover themselves and accept their imperfections. It helps them to discover and accept theirselves. But it also requires them to think and grow on their own instead of trying to solve their low self-esteem and lack of confidence by just getting a tattoo like a drug dependency.
10.17
This week I tried to contact five psychologists and briefed them on my project. And a counsellor who is a professional counsellor and writer in China replied to me.
After my interview with her, I did some research on tattoos and psychological trauma. Crompton (2020) shows that tattooing does help people who have been traumatized to accept and even show their trauma, and it allows them to accept their physical and emotional scars with optimism.
There is a team of American and Israeli tattoo artists abroad called Healing Ink, which specializes in tattooing the scars of people who have suffered from war and terrorist attacks.
In a short documentary they made in 2016, a woman who had been injured in a bomb attack says, ‘I used to hate my body because I was covered in scars, but after the tattoo, I fell in love with my body all over again.’
Pennerbaker (1988) points out that psychological trauma is actually easier to ignore than physical wounds. For people who are healthy but have experienced some trauma, expressing the trauma through writing and talking about it can provide a better understanding of the causes and effects of the trauma they have experienced and remove the need for them to suppress their feelings about it.
I find that tattooing is a similar way to writing and talking and tattooing is also a form of self-expression. If the tattoo is on an area of skin that can be exposed, the pattern on the body is a narrative of the traumatic experience and emotions without having to say or write it down. Tattoos help them to accept and even show imperfections. And the process of tattooing may shape a new self-identity.
In addition, a good tattoo is an agent that promotes a sense of intimacy between people. People can experience isolated feelings and are reluctant to talk about their bad experiences. But tattoos are eye-catching and if someone talks about how nice they look and asks where they came from, it may be an opportunity to talk about it and may give them the chance to build a connection with those around them.
Bibliography:
Crompton, L., Plotkin Amrami, G., Tsur, N., & Solomon, Z. ( 2020 ) . Tattoos in the wake of trauma: Transforming personal stories of suffering into public stories of coping. Deviant Behavior, 42 ( 10 ) , 1242-1255.
Mehta, V. ( 2021-06-29 ) . 5 Ways Tattoos Can Help People Heal. Psychology Today.
Pennebaker, J. W., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., & Glaser, R. ( 1988 ) . Disclosure of traumas and immune function: Health implications for psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56 ( 2 ) , 239 – 245.
10.10
Reflection：
After the first tutorial in Unit 3, I realized that I had several problems to solve. Firstly, I adjusted my question a little to how tattooing can boost young Asian women’s self-esteem and self-identity to reduce appearance anxiety. The most urgent thing I needed to address was to get myself involved in the tattoo. I will get a temporary tattoo myself to gain more authenticity to my project. I wanted to use this process of designing tattoos to share personal stories and getting temporary tattoos as a therapy. For my tattoo workshop, I could be the one to help them draw a temporary tattoo but I lack the knowledge in psychology. And with the reminder of my tutor David, I realized that the sensitive and vulnerable people among them might have too much negative emotion and anxiety when they recalled unpleasant personal experiences and personal shortcomings. What I have in mind for this is to try and contact a couple of psychotherapists. I will accompany them to get a temporary tattoo for this workshop and ask them about their mood state and once they feel uncomfortable with the process I will put them in touch with the psychotherapists I have found. Additionally, I need to interview with psychotherapists and psychologists about what they think of my project and what I need to improve.