A Creative Guide to Exploring Your Life: Self-Reflection Using Photography, Art, and Writing

By Graham Gordon Ramsay and Holly Barlow Sweet

Book Overview

An award-winning psychologist and professional photographer co-author this unique creative guide to exploring and understanding your life: who you are, what you value, and what you wish to achieve.

A Creative Guide to Exploring Your Life brims with imaginative exercises and examples that use the power of photography, art, and writing as tools for self-discovery. It provides clear and accessible guidance on how to explore different parts of your identity: take a photograph of yourself in a role you don't typically play, draw a visual timeline of your life and consider its key turning points; explore your sense of place in history by writing about a major historical event that has changed your life. Exercises are accompanied by searching questions for self-reflection, and are complemented by examples of each exercise to provoke ideas and inspiration.

Featuring additional guidance for teachers, counselors, and other professionals running the exercises in group settings, this book offers a dynamic and enjoyable way for you to explore different aspects of your life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1843108925
• ISBN13: 9781843108924
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Ltd
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A key pick for general-interest collections as well as high school to college-level libraries

Psychologist and professional photographers join to provide a unique guide to exploring and understanding your life in a book packed with exercises and examples pairing art with writing for self-discovery. Any who would keep a journal or use writing as a catharsis for personal evolution will find this a fine survey making it a key pick for general-interest collections as well as high school to college-level libraries.

A Fantastic Resource!

This is a fabulous book. As a former student of Holly and Graham, I've had the unique pleasure of "living" these lessons. I've found that the journey of self exploration is ongoing, and it's wonderful to have a hand-held guide . This book is valuable to individuals looking for a causal or a serious investment in self exploration. The exercises can be adapted for just about any scenario, with any age level, with any number of people (including one). Though geared towards college students and adults, I see great applications to work with middle school and high school students who are just beginning to discover the journey of self identity. It's a great tool for youth groups, seminars, classrooms, and counselor offices. I'm certain this book will remain at the front of my library.

A book to savor, and savor

I am in no way exaggerating when I say that this book has improved the quality of my life. MY PERSPECTIVE AS AN INDIVIDUAL This books allows me the time to reflect on my life; the entire point is slowing down and considering my experiences. In the book, sometimes fun, sometimes tough, always worthwhile topics are broached from several perspective. And after the topics are covered, a series of exercises invites the reader in. Any person, no matter his label or status, can complete these exercises. And if you're already looking at this book and reading this review, you're likely the kind of person who will benefit widely from doing so! MY PERSPECTIVE AS A STUDENT I was fortunate to complete some of these exercises in college, and found that they allowed me an awareness of self that my other classes did not. Self-reflection had not been present in my education K-12, or otherwise in my college education. Immediately upon starting them, I felt myself thinking about topics I'd not yet broached, or simply had the courage to. This was part of my coming-of-age in a big, big way. MY PERSPECTIVE AS A TEACHER Having taught at a college-level for almost three years, I find that my experience as a student was not unique--that our classes (even English ones) are not generally encouraging of self-reflection. And yet it seems so important to understand ourselves in order to understand the world and how we fit into it. Having read and loved this book, I know that from now on I will find ways to work exercises into my lessons as an English teacher, and if I ever get the chance, to use it as the sole textbook for a course on self-reflection. All in all, this is a beautiful book, and of my entire bookshelf, easily one of my Top 3. The exercises are engaging and insightful, and I return to them again and again--whether looking over what I initially did, or completing one anew and seeing what has changed since last. The comments from Holly and Graham are encouraging, profound, and well written. And being able to see examples of completed exercises--well that's just fun!

Engaging and inspiring

As someone who has written about creativity, I often get sent how-to-be-creative books. They are typically cloying and empty, sticky with platitudes. This book rises impressively above that gummy mass. One reason is Graham Ramsay's multidisciplinary talent--besides his work as a photographer and author, he is a professional composer. This keeps his exercises from getting mired in a single approach; they are accessible to people without particular artistic skills. Holly Sweet ably provides a psychological gloss on the process that makes the book useful for readers whose goal is to contemplate their own lives. The combination makes the book useful not only for artists, but for anyone who is self-reflective and wants to step out of their usual way of thinking about their life. Students who are thinking about their place in the world will find this book a great aid. But I was struck by how older adults too, looking back over a lifetime of snapshots and memorabilia, can use this book's approach to make sense of their lifetime of experience.