Doing a Dialogic Dance: Using Narrative and Visual Methods

In this panel presentation and paper, I draw on personal experience regarding the challenges of facilitating visually-oriented workshops for students and professionals. I critically examine and reflect on my core beliefs and values as a researcher and my roots in dialogic communication theory, and phenomenological approaches to arts therapy.
A general characteristic of using visual methods is that they promote emergence and transformation of meanings. Typically, many associations and metaphors emerge and alter rapidly as people work collaboratively with images and stories in a workshop setting. My experience is that the use of visual and narrative methods is a dance with participants, which I conceptualize as a mutual meaning-making process that emerges in a specific context. In the discussion, I consider how I
try to develop a dialogic dance inspired by a dialogic understanding of empowerment and phenomenological approach to emergence.