From Neil Springham's diary:
I felt David had been given a reflection of himself as an aggressive person in the situation he was describing. I also felt this was not what I saw in this picture as he described it. I felt that maybe he had ended up believing it and that seemed an injustice given my sense of David being so different to that description. My feeling, and it was strong, was I wanted to move to more honestly saying that directly to him. I had tried this a few times in our discussion and I think I felt it was accepted, so I was building on that.
At the centre of my experience was that I had a very strong sense of David in my mind. His picture seemed hyper-real to me at this point, I felt it was like a cave that I could walk through, commenting on things I saw as I moved about in it. I felt a little on my own with this and wondered where Julie was in what seemed to me to be a pressing issue. It was a relief when she came in with her word ‘softer’. I felt both the responsibility and the spell lift as she said it.
From Neil Springham's review of the video:
Looking at the video I was struck that it did not look as I remember feeling it at the time. Because he was so vividly in my mind, I assumed I had been equally looking at David and his picture and I thought I was sitting still. In the video I did not look at David at all and I notice just how much I am gesticulating, constantly redrawing the marks of his picture in the air with my hands (Figures 4 and 5). This seems to be linked to the point that the picture felt so real to me. I notice how Julie's intervention softens the physical intensity of my involvement instantly (Figure 6).
From Julie Brooker's diary
I was aware that I had not met with David before this experiential art therapy group. David lunged in talking about and through his artwork with some very personal and explicit content. I initially felt uncomfortable with this, aware I was the only female in the group, although this was not discussed at the time. Neil then took the subject matter on in a wider context. This broadened it out for me, which in turn made it feel safer and I lowered my guard realising that David had in fact entrusted some very sensitive and personal material to Neil and I. I was following and understanding what Neil was saying about David's artwork. However, I felt concerned about the depth and speed in which the explanation and exploration of the picture was being taken by Neil for David. It was at this moment that I felt a need to slow and simplify the process down for David by offering the word ‘softer’ as to how I saw the picture and a suggestion as to how David may be able to feel about in himself.
From Julie Brooker's review of the video:
In reflecting back on the video clip I can see that I am intensely listening and understanding what Neil is saying about David's picture—in that I see what is he saying too (Figure 4). But that I am checking both Neil's and David's facial responses as though taking care on a more interpersonal level. This is noted several times during the video clip (Figure 5). It was as though I needed to check how what Neil was saying was being taken up by David and wanting to make sure that he was alright. In addition I now see that there was unconscious division of labour going on between Neil and I. Neil is absorbed in the narrative of the picture, whereas I see myself from the outside working more on the interpersonal. I was not aware of this at the time.
From David Thorne's diary:
I felt open, uncomfortable and queasy: as if I am being operated upon. I was feeling quite present and attentive and alert, while at the same time entranced and distant. The words are going deep. Within me, I feel held and also altered. The seriousness with which this was being taken steadied my wavering thoughts on this. I think the earnestness and the seriousness taken by the other can make oneself feel valued and honoured, and lead to dispelling the self-defacing dismissiveness so readily at hand. Recognition is a better word—(re-cognition) I recognised in a moment the further significance of the work, and it is a re-cognition of something I already knew.
From David Thorne's review of the video:
What strikes me on reviewing this material is that it was not as if it was present in my mind as the meaning of the work, but the process of it being taken up earnestly in discussion had reconnected different levels of meaning for me. Disclosure is not the right word, as it suggests something was held back until the requirements needed to trust are fulfilled. The different take on the material confirms one side of my neurotic mind, and now I am wondering how I fell into this trap of taking on guilt so easily. Then it dawns on me something I felt shamed by in my past—that I felt undeserving of the shame, but it terrified me that anyone should know and I would be humiliated. This dilemma has set me up, and now I can see it in the image, as if it is obvious. I disclose the details of this event.
David Thorne wondered then if all these different layers of meaning had been in his mind while he had been making the work. He reviewed the whole video again and correlated this with his diary, recalling a lot of the sensations, associations and more focused intentions of the work. Looking back through the video it was clear just how gestural the art-making had been. David found instances of intense mirroring between his face and the face he was drawing, which he was not aware of at the time.Figure 7 shows a mirroring between his mouth and the image.