Skin Deep: Client Tattoos in Psychotherapy
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Historically, within psychological fields including psychotherapy, tattoos have often been written about as an indicator of deviance, psychopathology, or personality disorder, and have been viewed as a form of self-harm or mutilation. With reactions and perceptions towards tattooing evolving, this research project explores the way that psychotherapists make sense of client tattoos within their clinical work and writing, through conducting a thematic analysis of 65 psychotherapy related articles published since the year 2000. This analysis identified four themes within the literature which focus on the function of tattoos as an object; being tattooed as an act of mastery; tattoos as a way to relate and be related to; and the non-meanings, implied meanings, and indiscriminate meanings of tattoos. In identifying and discussing these themes, this research aims to expand existing thought on the potential clinical significance of client tattoos and broaden the ways that therapists engage with and make sense of them in collaboration with those whose bodies they are on.