Phototherapy and re-enactment portraiture (Spence, Martin)

1. Introduction

Version followed: re-enactment phototherapy as Rosy Martin describes it. She developed it with Jo Spence from 1983, out of co-counselling [source: Martin 2024; Wikipedia; London Photography showcase 2021], and continued it after Spence's death in 1992 in counsellor–client work and group workshops. Sources: the claims tagged to these sources below rest on Martin's 2024 interview, the Rosy Martin Wikipedia entry, Martin's Academia.edu publication list, the London Photography showcase page, the 1854 Photography feature on Spence, the OCAD thesis and the PhilArchive record. The OCAD thesis quotes two short passages from Martin & Spence 1985 (Feminist Review 19, p. 67). The reframing sequence in 4.13 therefore now rests on the founders' own wording, though at second hand. Further reading (not drawn on): the full text of Martin & Spence 1985 (JSTOR 1394985); its reprint as "Phototherapy: new portraits for old" in Betterton (ed.), Looking On (Pandora); Spence 1986, Putting Myself in the Picture, including Martin's chapter "Phototherapy"; Martin's school-photo chapter in Photography/Politics: Two; Martin 1997; Martin 2001 Afterimage, which has a section headed "Steps in re-enactment phototherapy"; the full text of Martin 2009 EJPC; and rosymartin.co.uk and the Outrageous Agers statement. Step-level detail below is thinner than those texts would give [uncertain]. This is not Judy Weiser's PhotoTherapy techniques, a separate North American tradition that is not covered here. It is also not "therapeutic photography", meaning photo activities done without a therapist [source: Kaite 2014 review of Loewenthal 2013].

What it is. Re-enactment phototherapy is a collaborative, feminist practice using photographic portraiture. A client (the "sitter") chooses a memory, a family-album image, a role or an imagined future self. Inside a counselling relationship they stage and perform it, with costume and props, for a photographer-therapist who holds a nurturing, permission-giving gaze. The new photographs are then processed together [source: Martin 2024 interview; Sheffield Look at Me!; Martin 2009 abstract]. Martin calls it a form of "creative adult play" [source: Martin 2009 abstract]. It is a practice and method rather than a manualised therapy, and was first practised as art, so many of its best-known works are exhibited art [source: Photographers' Gallery 1987; V&A]. The method does not aim for an "ideal", "real" or "positive" image. Its therapeutic gaze differs from traditional portraiture, and authorship is shared, with both subject and photographer credited [source: London Photography showcase 2021].

How change happens. The core idea is that a portrait is not fixed. Identity is built psychically and socially, including by the family album, the school photo and the discourses of medicine, education and the media. Re-performing that identity lets a person examine it and then question, accept, transform or discard it [source: Photographers' Gallery 1987; McNay 2023; Martin 2009 abstract]. The sitter goes back to the source of an old hurt, re-enacts it and makes a new ending, or finds a nurturing part of the self that answers the inner critic [source: McNay 2023]. Martin and Spence describe their basic move like this: take a specific piece of behaviour, a piece of history or an image, examine what it represents to the person, and then change that meaning. Reframing works as "internal permission-giving: permission to change, to re-view, to let go, to move on" [source: Martin & Spence 1985, p. 67, quoted in OCAD thesis p. 5]. Martin also describes it as "unconsciousness raising": linking personal pain to class, gender and sexuality [source: Martin 2024 interview]. The roots it names are co-counselling, psychodrama and the NLP reframing technique [source: McNay 2023].

Professional frame. None of the sources names a regulated profession, credential, certifying body or accredited training route for re-enactment phototherapy [source: Wikipedia; Martin 2024]. Martin's own route was a postgraduate diploma in counselling (Institute of Education, University of London, 1995), which she took after the early co-counselling-based work with Spence. She now works as a psychological therapist in private practice [source: Wikipedia; Martin 2024]. Neither source names a registering body (such as BACP or UKCP) for her [uncertain]. She teaches the method through experiential workshops lasting one or two days [source: CBP 2023; Goldsmiths 2025]. Use it only inside your own registered or accredited practice: in the UK, for example, HCPC registration as an arts therapist, or BACP/UKCP/BPS membership or registration as a counsellor or psychotherapist. Experience the method yourself as a sitter first, ideally in one of Martin's workshops [synthesis]. Martin states it "must be used carefully and responsibly" [source: Martin 2024], and Lindfors (summarised on the Martin 2009 record) advises using it "with utmost care in a safe professional setting". Untrained photographers, peer groups and self-help users should keep to album-viewing and storytelling and leave out trauma re-enactment [synthesis].

2. Framework

The sources do not give a fixed number of sessions. The structure below combines what they describe [source: Martin 2024; Sheffield; CBP 2023; Goldsmiths 2025]. Phase names are this guide's own [synthesis]. In the original Spence–Martin sessions, the pair discussed a session's focus, planned the images, shot them, and later reflected on what they had made [source: 1854 Photography feature on Spence]. Martin adds extensive counselling before the shoot and processing afterwards [source: Martin 2024].

Phase A: relationship and contract. Goal: trust, safety and a clear contract. Martin begins as an ordinary counsellor and brings in photography only if the client chooses it. Formal contracts and boundaries help clients feel held [source: Martin 2024]. Spence and Martin co-counselled for about a year before they first tried on roles for the camera [source: Martin 2024]. Move on when: the client can tolerate strong feeling within the session, has opted into camera work, and has agreed how the images will be used and stored [synthesis].

Phase B: memory and album work. Goal: find the issue or story through existing photographs, especially family albums and school photos. Look at absences and silences, and at who edited the album [source: Goldsmiths 2025; Kaite 2014; Photographers' Gallery 1987]. Martin calls family albums a rich resource for autobiographical storytelling and for exploring family systems. In the method, the album is where a past image is found that triggers a memory needing therapeutic attention [source: Martin 2009, quoted and paraphrased in OCAD thesis p. 5]. Format: in individual therapy this is ordinary counselling sessions. In groups it is one workshop day, with participants working in pairs [source: CBP 2023 Day 1; Goldsmiths 2025 (12:00–18:00)]. Move on when: a focal story, scene, role or belief has been named and the sitter can say what shift they want [synthesis based on Martin 2024].

Phase C: planning the re-enactment. Goal: agree a transformative goal (a shift that challenges an old belief by the end of the session). Choose a past or imagined future scene that includes images of transformation and self-nurturance. Gather clothes and props [source: Martin 2024; Sheffield].

Phase D: the photographic session. Goal: the sitter directs and performs. The photographer witnesses, encourages and photographs, with the aim of reaching a "transformative image" [source: CBP 2023; Martin 2024]. Format: in groups, pairs who exchange roles. Workshop days run roughly 10:00–17:30 [source: CBP 2023; Sheffield]. Individual session length was not found [uncertain].

Phase E: processing and sharing. Goal: work through the emotions the session raised. Review the images, decide what to keep, transform or discard, and tell new stories [source: Martin 2024; McNay 2023; Sheffield]. Groups end with shared viewing, which Martin describes as cathartic on the final day of the original five-day intensives [source: Martin 2024]. Move on / end when: the sitter can tell the old story in a new way and shows it outside sessions, for example in self-talk or behaviour [synthesis].

Known formats: original peer co-counselling pairs (Spence/Martin, 1983–92); five-day intensive workshops; six day-long workshops for older women over about three weeks (Sheffield, 2010); a two-day course with a week between days (CBP 2023); one-day family-album workshops (Goldsmiths 2025); individual counsellor–client work. Martin has also run community work in a women's prison, with survivors of sexual abuse and in schools (digital identities) [source: Wikipedia; Sheffield; CBP; Goldsmiths]. Protocols for those settings were not found [uncertain].

3. Guiding principles

Relationship before camera. Counselling comes first, and photography is offered, not imposed. In practice: do not raise re-enactment until trust is established, and accept a "no" [source: Martin 2024].
The sitter directs, the photographer supports. The photographer gives up the usual power over the image. In practice: ask "what do you want this picture to show?" and follow the sitter's choices about pose, framing and when to stop [source: Martin 2024; Sheffield].
Equality and reciprocity. The method began between equals who took turns [source: Photographers' Gallery 1987]. In practice: in groups, rotate roles. In individual work, share power over decisions about the images [synthesis].
The therapeutic gaze. The photographer is witness, advocate and nurturer, offering a "gaze of nurturance and permission giving" [source: Sheffield; Martin 2024]. In practice: stay closely attuned, and encourage the sitter when they hold back or censor themselves.
Encourage, don't capture. Sessions are "not about capturing the moment but encouraging it to take place". It is not posing [source: Martin 2024]. In practice: the shutter serves the process. Keep photographing as feeling unfolds, rather than waiting for a good shot.
Play. It is like children's fantasy play, where the child controls the outcome [source: Martin 2024]. In practice: dressing up and exaggeration are welcome, and the sitter may rewrite the ending.
Intensity within safety. The work should be emotionally intense but inside permission and safety [source: Martin 2024; Sheffield]. In practice: screen, contract, pace, and keep time to process before ending. Martin's workshop ground rules were confidentiality, personal responsibility, respect for boundaries and a "safe holding environment" [source: Martin 2019, captions visible on Martin's Academia.edu list].
Photographs are fictions. Album images are constructed and edited, often by the mother as archivist [source: Kaite 2014 on Martin, Loewenthal 2013 pp. 70–71]. In practice: ask who took the picture, who chose it and what was left out, and treat no image as the truth about a childhood.
The personal is social. Map class, gender, sexuality and institutional discourses onto personal experience [source: Martin 2024; Photographers' Gallery 1987]. In practice: when shame appears, also ask whose standards are speaking.
Aim for transformation and self-nurturance. Each scene should include a transformative or nurturing image [source: Sheffield; McNay 2023; CBP 2023]. In practice: do not end on the re-enacted hurt alone. Plan the "new ending" or the nurturing figure before you begin.
The portrait is open. Possibilities can be examined, changed or dropped [source: Photographers' Gallery 1987]. Martin seeks no "ideal", "real" or "positive" image, because history, culture and power keep shaping identities [source: London Photography showcase 2021]. In practice: the sitter may discard or delete images, and none is "the real you".
Confidentiality, mutual respect and reciprocal listening [source: Goldsmiths 2025; CBP 2023]. In practice: agree group rules on talking about and sharing images outside the group, including on social media [synthesis].
Credit and consent around the product. Spence and Martin credited both names on the work, and authorship is treated as shared [source: Martin 2024; London Photography showcase 2021]. Martin flags the questions raised when work moves "from process to product" [source: Martin 2009 abstract]. In practice: get separate written consent before any image leaves the therapy, and let the sitter own their images [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

Each item below is named in the sources. Step-by-step detail is mostly this guide's operationalisation, because the full method texts are not drawn on [synthesis; uncertain]. All example language is illustrative, not Martin's or Spence's.

Set-up and safety (applies to every photographic intervention) [synthesis unless marked]. Equipment: a digital camera or a good smartphone, as in Martin's current workshops [source: CBP 2023]. Use a private room with the door secured, enough clear floor for movement, and a mirror. Tape down or route cables, and use LED lights rather than hot lamps. If a projector is used, keep it on a stable stand. Props: no real flames or lit cigarettes (use unlit or fake ones), no sharp objects, no real weapons, and no real medical items such as needles. Wash or launder shared costumes, and offer a private screen for changing. Sitters should not be photographed in underwear or nude in a therapy session. Agree in writing who keeps the files, where they are stored (encrypted, on a device that does not sync automatically), how long they are kept, and that no image is shared or exhibited without separate consent.

4.1 Contracting and opting into camera work

Purpose / when: at the start of individual work, or when an existing client becomes curious about images. It establishes that photography is a choice [source: Martin 2024].
Steps: (1) Give a plain account of the method: you will look at photos, and may stage and photograph scenes the client directs. (2) Agree limits: topics that are off-limits for now, a stop signal, no physical contact without asking, clothing limits. (3) Agree image ownership, storage and deletion. (4) Record consent, and revisit it before each photographic session. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "We can keep simply talking. If you'd like, we could also bring photographs in, and later even make new ones together. You'd be the director."
Watch for: a client agreeing in order to please you. Consent should be easy to withdraw, so check it again in the session [synthesis].

4.2 Group opening: introducing yourself through an object

Purpose / when: at the start of a workshop day. It builds the group and models self-representation through things rather than words [source: Goldsmiths 2025: participants bring an object representing aspects of who they are].
Steps: (1) Ask in advance for one object. (2) In a circle, each person shows it and says briefly which part of them it stands for. (3) Agree group rules. Martin's published ground rules are confidentiality "as a way of being in the group", personal responsibility, respect for boundaries and a safe holding environment [source: Martin 2019, captions visible on Martin's Academia.edu list]. Goldsmiths 2025 adds mutual respect and reciprocal listening. A rule against phones photographing others is this guide's addition [synthesis]. (4) Give everyone a list of local therapy and support services, as Martin did in the Look at Me! workshops [source: Martin 2019, captions visible on Martin's Academia.edu list].
Example language (illustrative): "Hold up your object and tell us one thing it says about you that a photo of your face wouldn't."
Watch for: people disclosing too much too soon. Keep this round brief and light [synthesis].

4.3 Preparatory self-examination

Purpose / when: before album or workshop work, to start memories surfacing [source: Goldsmiths and CBP: participants receive Preparatory Notes and do preparation before and between days]. The notes' contents were not found [uncertain].
Steps (synthesis): ask the client to choose a small selection of personally significant photos (family of origin, adoption or choice), to jot down memories they bring up, and to note any important events that were never photographed.
Example language (illustrative): "Bring a handful, not the whole album. Choose ones that tug at you, pleasantly or not."
Watch for: distress at home between sessions. Give a contact route and grounding suggestions [synthesis].

4.4 Entering the image: storytelling from a photograph

Purpose / when: to open memory and narrative from a single image. Clients tell a story using a chosen photograph as the starting point, by entering the space of the image. The photo can be their own or one from a stock selection the therapist provides [source: Kaite 2014 on Martin, Loewenthal 2013 p. 70]. In re-enactment work the album is also the starting point: the client finds a past image that triggers a memory needing attention, and that memory is later reframed [source: OCAD thesis p. 5, citing Martin 2009].
Steps (operationalised): (1) The client chooses one image. (2) Invite them to look slowly, then to describe it in the present tense as if they are standing inside it. (3) Explore the senses, the people outside the frame, what happened just before and just after. (4) Ask what the person in the picture felt and wanted. (5) Note the strongest point of feeling, which may become a re-enactment theme later.
Example language (illustrative): "Step into the picture. Where are you standing? What can you hear? Who is just out of the frame?"
Watch for: a change from describing the image to reliving it, shown by tense, voice and breathing. That is useful if it stays within the window of tolerance. If it doesn't, ground the client (see 5) [synthesis].

4.5 Interrogating the album: editor, absences and silences

Purpose / when: to challenge nostalgic or idealised family narratives and shame about having "failed" them. The album's editor is usually the mother as archivist, whose choices may reflect an unconscious wish to show good mothering [source: Kaite on Martin p. 71]. The work is to open up the "absences and silences hidden by nostalgia" [source: CBP 2023; Goldsmiths 2025].
Steps (operationalised): (1) Ask who took each photo, who chose to keep it and who put it in the album. (2) Ask what is missing: events, people, years, feelings. (3) Ask what the photo was meant to say to whom. (4) Ask what the client knows that the photo hides.
Example language (illustrative): "Who decided this one made it into the album? What happened that week that no one photographed?"
Watch for: blaming a parent outright, or idealising them. Aim for understanding the editor's position too, and see 4.11 [synthesis].

4.6 Reworking an existing portrait (including the school photo)

Purpose / when: when one formal image, such as a school photo or studio portrait, carries a fixed identity [source: Photographers' Gallery 1987: imagining what happened before and after the moment, and what feelings and memories it hid; two school photographs used as starting points]. Martin's 1987 chapter "Phototherapy: transforming the school photo" is not drawn on [uncertain].
Steps (operationalised): (1) Place the portrait in front of the client. (2) Explore the moment just before (getting dressed, being told to smile) and just after. (3) Ask which institutions shaped this child: school, class, gender expectations. (4) Decide whether to re-stage it (4.9) in its original form, its hidden form or a transformed form.
Example language (illustrative): "Ten minutes before this picture, what was going on? And ten minutes after, when the smile could drop?"
Watch for: contempt for the younger self, which is a key target for nurturing work (4.12) [synthesis].

4.7 Mapping the social into the personal

Purpose / when: when shame or self-criticism echoes outside norms of class, gender, sexuality, ageing, health or the body. This is "unconsciousness raising": linking the discourses of medicine, education, law and media to personal experience [source: Martin 2024; Photographers' Gallery 1987]. The sources do not describe a specific mapping procedure [uncertain].
Steps (synthesis): (1) Name the self-judgement. (2) Ask whose voice it is and where it was learned: family, school, doctors, media. (3) Write or sketch these sources around the photograph. (4) Choose which voice to challenge in the re-enactment.
Example language (illustrative): "When you say 'I look past it', whose words are those? Where did you first hear them?"
Watch for: turning this into a lecture. Keep it rooted in the client's own images and words [synthesis].

4.8 Identifying the issue and agreeing a transformative goal

Purpose / when: before any re-enactment. Through counselling, identify the issue or story, and agree that the session should end with a shift that challenges an old belief [source: Martin 2024]. Each narrative should include images of transformation and self-nurturance [source: Sheffield].
Steps (operationalised): (1) Summarise the old belief in the client's own words. (2) Ask what image would show it changing. (3) Agree a sequence: the old scene, then the shift, then the nurtured or transformed self. (4) Agree the stop signal and limits for this session.
Example language (illustrative): "If this belief loosened even a little, what would we see in the last photograph?"
Watch for: goals that are too large for one session. Pick one belief and one scene [synthesis].

4.9 Staging the scene: choosing the scenario, costume and props

Purpose / when: after 4.8. Choose a past scene or an imagined future scene, then find clothes and props that build the period and atmosphere [source: Sheffield; Martin 2024].
Steps (operationalised): (1) The sitter describes the scene: place, age, who is present, what is said. (2) Choose the minimum costume and props that bring the feeling back, such as a school jumper, a parent's coat or a hospital gown substitute. (3) Arrange the space. (4) The sitter decides how they want to be framed and what the photographer should look for. In Martin's pair work, the partner asks the sitter what they want captured [source: Sheffield].
Example language (illustrative): "What one item would put you right back there? Where do you want me to stand?"
Watch for: recreating too exactly a scene of abuse or violence. Use symbolic objects, not literal ones, and never re-stage sexual abuse bodily [synthesis; safety].

4.10 The re-enactment photographic session

Purpose / when: the core intervention. The sitter performs aspects of their own history and the photographer offers a therapeutic gaze within a collaborative exchange, aiming for a "transformative image" [source: CBP 2023; Martin 2024; Martin 2009 abstract].
Roles: the sitter-director chooses and performs. The photographer-therapist is witness, advocate and nurturer, closely attuned, and encourages the sitter when they hold back or censor themselves [source: Martin 2024]. The photographer works intuitively, guided by the emotional weight of the story [source: Martin 2024].
Steps (operationalised): (1) Brief warm-up: body, breath, getting into costume. (2) The sitter enters the old scene and speaks or moves as their past self, while the photographer photographs continuously and offers prompts the sitter has agreed to. (3) At the peak of feeling, keep photographing and reflect back what you see. (4) Move into the agreed shift (4.11–4.13) and photograph the new ending. (5) Leave costume and props, step out of the role and ground (see 4.16). (6) Process (4.17).
Example language (illustrative): "Stay with that. I'm here. What does she want to say?" Then: "Now, what does she need? Show me."
Watch for: working signs are spontaneous movement, words that surprise the sitter, a felt shift (often tears, then laughter or calm), and a final image the sitter recognises as new. Non-working signs are posing for a "good picture", freezing, or dissociation (glazed look, flat voice, losing the present). See 5 [synthesis; posing contrast from Martin 2024].

4.11 Becoming the other: re-enacting a parent or significant other

Purpose / when: to understand a parent as a person with their own hardships, beyond their role as parent. In My Mother as a War Worker (1985), Spence dressed as her mother at a time before her own birth and "acted the part", in order to empathise [source: V&A E.397-2010 record]. Lindfors compares this to psychodrama with more emphasis on the visual side of role-taking [source: Lindfors summary on Martin 2009 record].
Steps (operationalised): (1) Gather what the client knows of the parent's life at that age. (2) Dress and pose as the parent. (3) Speak as them about their worries, wants and constraints. (4) Step out of role and reflect: what do I understand now?
Example language (illustrative): "You're her, 1940, before any children. What's on your mind tonight?"
Watch for: taking on an abusive parent's perspective in a way that excuses abuse or turns into self-blame. Use this mainly where the relationship is ambivalent rather than abusive, and always de-role [synthesis].

4.12 Becoming your own parent: nurturing re-enactment

Purpose / when: for harsh self-criticism or unmet childhood needs. Find a nurturing part of the self that can challenge the critical inner voice [source: McNay 2023]. In Transformations (1984), Spence tried childhood and fairy-tale roles (Cinderella, Ugly Sister, Fairy), then imagined her dead parents with joy and, by imagining herself as them, became her own parent [source: Hyman Collection, citing Spence 1986 p. 181].
Steps (operationalised): (1) Photograph the hurt or criticised younger self. (2) The sitter changes into a nurturing figure: their own adult self, an idealised parent, or a figure from a story. (3) The nurturer speaks to the photo of the younger self, or to an empty chair or prop standing for them. (4) Photograph the nurturing gesture. (5) Place the two images side by side.
Example language (illustrative): "Look at her picture. What did she need someone to say? You can say it now."
Watch for: the inner critic interrupting the nurturer ("this is silly"). Name it and photograph the critic as well, to externalise it [synthesis].

4.13 Re-enacting the source and creating a new ending; reframing

Purpose / when: for an old trauma or formative scene. Go back to the source, re-enact it and create a new ending [source: McNay 2023]. The founders describe reframing like this: take a specific piece of behaviour, history or an image, examine what it represents to you, then change that meaning. They call reframing "a kind of internal permission-giving" [source: Martin & Spence 1985, p. 67, quoted in OCAD thesis p. 5]. McNay links it to NLP reframing [source: McNay 2023].
Steps (sequence from Martin & Spence 1985; detailed steps are synthesis): (1) Name the image, scene or behaviour, and explore what it represents to the client now. (2) Agree the scene and the new ending beforehand. (3) Re-enact briefly and symbolically, not at length. (4) At the agreed moment, the sitter acts out the alternative: refusing, leaving, speaking back, being rescued or being comforted. (5) Photograph the new ending as the final image. (6) Name the permission the sitter has given themselves.
Example language (illustrative): "This time it ends differently. What do you do?" Then: "What permission are you giving yourself here?"
Watch for: this is exposure-like work. Contraindications and pacing are in 5. A working sign is that the sitter can recall the original scene afterwards with less distress and holds onto the new image [synthesis].

4.14 Trying on identities: roles imposed, denied or feared

Purpose / when: to explore how others see you and the identities you resist or hide. Spence explored being seen as student, middle-aged woman, breast-cancer patient and photographer. Martin explored the pressure, as a lesbian, to wear a uniform she had resisted all her life (Transforming the Suit, 1986) [source: Martin 2024]. The pair's founding idea was role-playing and photographing hidden or denied aspects of identity, giving each other permission to display "new" visual selves [source: McNay 2023, quoting Martin & Spence 1986].
Steps (operationalised): (1) List roles the client is given or fears. (2) Choose one, exaggerating it is fine. (3) Dress in it and perform it. (4) Then perform the role the client wants or has denied.
Example language (illustrative): "Show me 'the good patient'. Now show me what she's not allowed to be."
Watch for: sexualised self-presentation. Keep clothing limits, and see 5 on touch and physical contact [synthesis].

4.15 Narrative sequences and themed photographic diaries

Purpose / when: to show process over time. Narrative portraits of life stages, made as sequences that read like visual storytelling [source: Photographers' Gallery 1987], and alternative photographic diaries on a theme such as ageing [source: Sheffield]. Martin's aim is "making visible process, change and transformation" [source: McNay quoting Martin 2009 p. 41].
Steps (operationalised): arrange session images, or images the client takes between sessions, into a sequence of before, during and after. The client titles or captions each one.
Watch for: a sequence that ends on the hurt. Add or select a closing image of transformation [synthesis].

4.16 Stepping out of role and grounding

Purpose / when: at the end of every re-enactment. None of the sources describes a de-roling procedure [uncertain]. Martin's 2001 Afterimage essay has a section headed "Steps in re-enactment phototherapy", but its text is not drawn on. Her interview says only that the emotions raised are processed afterwards [source: Martin's Academia.edu list; Martin 2024]. Because the method draws on psychodrama [source: McNay 2023], use standard de-roling [synthesis].
Steps (synthesis): (1) Take off the costume and put the props away, out of sight. (2) The sitter says aloud their own name, today's date and one way they differ from the role. (3) Orient: feet on the floor, name objects in the room. (4) If they played a parent or other person, they "hand back" that role.
Example language (illustrative): "Coat off, and back to you. Tell me your name and one thing in this room."
Watch for: the role lingering, for example still speaking in the parent's voice. Repeat until the sitter is clearly back in the present.

4.17 Processing and reviewing the images

Purpose / when: straight after the session and again later. Work through the emotions the re-enactment brought up [source: Martin 2024]. Examine, question, accept, transform or discard what the images show [source: McNay 2023; Photographers' Gallery 1987]. Martin notes that digital cameras lose the "deferral" that film gave [source: Kaite on Martin p. 79].
Steps (operationalised): (1) First, process the feelings without looking at the images. (2) Review the images together on a larger screen, either at the end or in the next session, deliberately recreating some delay [synthesis on deferral]. (3) The sitter chooses the key images, including the "transformative image". (4) Ask what each shows that the old photos did not. (5) The sitter decides which images to keep, print or delete.
Example language (illustrative): "Which picture surprises you? Which one would you put in your album now?"
Watch for: harsh judgement of their own appearance in the new images. Go back to 4.12 [synthesis].

4.18 Pair work, role exchange and group sharing

Purpose / when: in workshops. Partners take turns as sitter and photographer, then share the images with each other and the whole group, looking at which aspects of the self they reveal [source: Sheffield; CBP 2023; Photographers' Gallery 1987]. Martin describes the final sharing day as cathartic, and the group framework as "holding" the group dynamics so that everyone is heard and seen [source: Martin 2024].
Steps (operationalised): (1) Pair people deliberately, not friends with friends [synthesis]. (2) Brief the photographers on the therapeutic gaze. (3) Set timed turns, with the facilitator moving between pairs. If a participant has no workable partner, the facilitator steps in as their partner, as Martin did [source: Martin 2019, captions visible on Martin's Academia.edu list]. (4) Pairs debrief. (5) In the whole group, each person shows two or three images and tells the "new story". Listeners respond with what they see and feel, not with interpretation [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative): "Tell us the story these pictures tell now. Group: say what you notice, not what it means."
Watch for: one partner taking over the photographer's role, or the group interpreting someone's image for them. Step in quickly.

4.19 Loss, grief and memorialisation

Purpose / when: for bereavement. Martin revisits re-enactment as a way to embody loss and grief, to create new rituals within the history of post-mortem photography, and to represent reparation and ambivalence as memory shifts to hold conflicting emotions [source: Martin 2023 abstract]. Her own work included photographing the family home after her father's death (Too Close to Home?, from 1990) [source: Martin 2024]. The chapter's procedures are not drawn on [uncertain].
Steps (synthesis): (1) Photograph meaningful objects and places belonging to the dead person. (2) Re-enact a remembered scene with them, or a farewell that never happened. (3) Allow both love and anger to be shown. (4) Create a small personal ritual image, for example an arrangement of objects.
Watch for: complicated or traumatic grief. Pace slowly and refer on if needed [synthesis].

4.20 Revisiting places with old images

Purpose / when: to link past and present. Martin projected slides of her parents' 1939 photographs onto the places where they were taken and rephotographed the results (1939/2006 Revisiting) [source: Martin 2024]. This was an art project, and its clinical use is your adaptation [synthesis].
Steps (synthesis): take or show an old print at its original location (or project it there), photograph the old image within the present scene, and reflect on what has stayed the same and what has changed. Keep the client physically safe at the location and respect private property.

4.21 Ageing, illness and the body: re-seeing body images

Purpose / when: for ageing, illness and body shame. Spence's breast-cancer work (The Picture of Health?, with Martin and Maggie Murray, 1985–86) [source: Wikipedia; V&A]. Workshops for older women to challenge "stereotypes of decline and redundancy" [source: Sheffield]. Projecting texts onto ageing bodies (Outrageous Agers, with Kay Goodridge: from 1997 according to Martin 2024, and exhibited in Wolverhampton in 2000, Southend in 2001 and Turku in 2003 according to Wikipedia), and extreme close-ups that make bodies strange (Gravity Gravitas, with Verity Welstead, from 2017) [source: Martin 2024]. These last two are collaborative art practice, and clinical use is an adaptation [synthesis].
Steps (synthesis): (1) Name the dominant images of this body, such as medical or media ones. (2) Re-enact being a patient or "old woman" as others see it. (3) Then stage how the client wants to be seen. (4) Optionally, photograph close-ups the client chooses, so they can look at the body without the usual judging frame. Clothing and close-ups stay strictly within limits the client sets.
Watch for: medical decisions. This work supports identity and coping, and does not replace medical treatment or change health advice [synthesis].

4.22 Adaptations for children and young people

Status: Martin has done school projects on digital identities [source: Wikipedia], but no child protocol was found. All of this item is [synthesis].
Steps: get carer consent and the child's own assent. Favour play-based dressing up and future or strength scenes over re-enacting trauma. Use sessions of 30–45 minutes. Never photograph children undressed. The service keeps the images, under its safeguarding policy, and children do not keep copies on personal phones.

5. Handling problems

The sources say little directly. They note that painful memories may surface, so a secure setting and an experienced facilitator are needed [source: Sheffield]. They describe the work as intense, demanding commitment and full attendance [source: CBP 2023]. They say contracts and boundaries hold clients [source: Martin 2024], and that the method must be used "carefully and responsibly" [source: Martin 2024]. Martin's workshops also gave participants a list of local therapy and support groups, and set ground rules for a safe holding environment [source: Martin 2019, captions visible on Martin's Academia.edu list]. Everything else below is [synthesis].

Screening and contraindications (re-enactment, 4.9–4.14) [synthesis]. Postpone trauma re-enactment if the client has: current suicidal crisis, active psychosis or mania, severe dissociation, an untreated eating disorder (for body and image work), ongoing abuse or a live court case where images or disclosures could matter, or no stable support outside sessions. Check risk with your service's standard assessment, and record a safety plan before intense sessions. Album work (4.4–4.7) can usually go ahead with more pacing.

Overwhelm or retraumatisation during re-enactment. Signs: rapid breathing, freezing, dissociation, losing touch with the present. Response: stop photographing and put the camera down. Name the present and use the agreed stop signal. Take off costume and props (4.16) and ground the client. Give no new content, and come back to the story only when the client is clearly regulated. Next time, shorten the old scene and move to the new ending sooner, or switch to working with an existing image instead of enacting [synthesis].

Stuck: posing instead of feeling. The client acts for a "good picture". This is the opposite of encouraging the moment to take place [source: Martin 2024]. Response: show fewer images during the session, photograph continuously, use movement or voice warm-ups, or ask what the person in the scene wants rather than how they should look [synthesis].

Self-censorship and holding back. Martin says the photographer should encourage the sitter when they hold back or censor themselves [source: Martin 2024]. Response: acknowledge the hesitation and offer a smaller step, such as a single prop, an exaggerated version or a future-self scene. Never push past an explicit no [synthesis].

Resistance to the camera or shame about appearance. Response: stay with album work only, let the client hold the camera, photograph hands, objects or shadows instead of the face, and delete images immediately on request [synthesis].

Non-adherence (preparation not done, missed workshop day). Workshops expect preparation and full attendance, because absence affects a partner [source: CBP 2023]. Response: in individual work, explore what the preparation stirred up. In groups, have a plan for re-pairing someone whose partner is absent [synthesis].

Ruptures: the photographer's gaze feels intrusive or judging. Response: name the power imbalance, and give back control over framing and over which images are taken and kept. Repair openly, and go back to the principle that the sitter directs [source for principle: Martin 2024; response synthesis].

Touch and physical contact. Adjusting clothing, posing or comforting may involve touch. Response: ask first every time, explain the purpose, offer to let the client do it themselves, respect cultural and trauma-related limits, and never touch in a sexual or genital way. Hugging a sitter "in role" is done only if agreed beforehand, and you can use a cushion or prop instead [synthesis].

Disclosures of abuse or new memories. Response: follow your safeguarding and mandatory-reporting duties. With under-18s, and with adults at risk, report under local procedure. Do not suggest or confirm memories, and do not treat images or enactments as evidence of what happened. Photographs are "fictions" [source: Kaite on Martin p. 70], and no validated diagnostic use of re-enactment images exists [synthesis; uncertain whether any assessment manual exists: none found].

Group-specific problems. A participant floods the group: give them individual attention with a co-facilitator while the group continues. Partners mismatched in readiness: re-pair them, or partner the participant yourself, as Martin did [source: Martin 2019, captions visible on Martin's Academia.edu list]. Leaks of images or stories: enforce the confidentiality agreement, and agree in advance that no images go on social media [synthesis; confidentiality from Goldsmiths 2025].

Images after therapy ("process to product"). Martin flags the issues raised when therapeutic work becomes exhibited work [source: Martin 2009 abstract]. Response: get separate written consent at a later date, check the client is not still in crisis, allow consent to be withdrawn, and settle credit and ownership [synthesis]. Spence and Martin credited both names [source: Martin 2024].

Data and digital risks. Phone cameras sync to the cloud. Use a dedicated device, or switch syncing off, store images encrypted and agree when they will be deleted [synthesis]. Martin's point about the lost "deferral" of digital images means you should build in delayed review deliberately [source: Kaite on Martin p. 79; application synthesis].

Physical safety [synthesis]. Watch for falls when the sitter is in costume (long skirts, unfamiliar shoes), tripping on cables, hot lights and burns, and props with flames or sharp edges. Prevent these with the set-up in 4.

Sources

Sources:

Further reading (not drawn on in full) [uncertain where relied on]:

Martin, R. & Spence, J. (1985). New portraits for old: the use of the camera in therapy. Feminist Review, 19, 66–92 (JSTOR 1394985). Page 67 is quoted in the OCAD thesis. Wikipedia lists a reprint, "Phototherapy: new portraits for old", in R. Betterton (ed.), Looking On, London: Pandora. Wikipedia gives no year for the reprint; 1987 [uncertain].
Spence, J. (1986). Putting Myself in the Picture: A Political, Personal and Photographic Autobiography. London: Camden Press. Includes Martin's chapter "Phototherapy" [source: Wikipedia].
Martin, R. School-photo chapter in Holland, Spence & Watney (eds), Photography/Politics: Two (Comedia/Photography Workshop). The sources differ on title and year. Wikipedia gives "Phototherapy: transforming the school photo", 1987. Martin's Academia.edu list gives "Phototherapy: The school photograph (Happy days are here again)", 1986 [uncertain].
Martin, R. & Spence, J. (1987). What do lesbians look like? Ten.8, 25.
Martin, R. (1988). Phototherapy: psychic realism as healing art. Ten.8.
Martin, R. (1997). Looking and reflecting: returning the gaze, re-enacting memories and imagining the future through phototherapy. In Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy.
Martin, R. (2001). The performative body: phototherapy and re-enactment. Afterimage, Nov–Dec 2001. Includes a section headed "Steps in re-enactment phototherapy", which is not drawn on.
Martin, R. (2009). Inhabiting the image: photography, therapy and re-enactment phototherapy. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 11(1), 35–49. doi:10.1080/13642530902723074.
Loewenthal, D. (ed.) (2013). Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age. London: Routledge (Martin's chapter, as summarised by Kaite).
Martin, R. (2019). 'Look at me!' Representing self: representing ageing. Academia.edu gives the book as Gender Issues in International Arts Therapies Research (Routledge). Only the figure captions were seen.
Martin, R. (2020). Outrageous ageing as activism. In Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms. Valiz.
Martin, R. (2023). Make the most of your memories: re-enactment phototherapy, auto-ethnography, memorialisation. In Bruce et al. (eds), Handbook of Research on the Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory and Photography. IGI Global.

Blocked or refused: rosymartin.info (earlier pass). In the October 2026 pass: rosymartin.co.uk, the Outrageous Agers artists' statement PDF, and the Academia.edu full-text pages for Martin 1988 and Martin 2019 (links refused).

← Previous · VIII-026PhotoTherapy, Photo-Art-Therapy and therapeutic photography (Weiser)Next · VIII-028 →Photolangage group mediation