What is it about?
People have their personal reasons for getting tattoos. The tattoo itself has various functions. A major theme in these interviews relates to how participants with tattoos used courage to approach and overcome life's problems, and how they cooperated and felt connection with those around them.
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Why is it important?
Historically, researchers focused on how tattoos connect with pathology. But tattoos involve so much more than that (and often the exact opposite). This article is the first research to connect tattoos with the Adlerian concept of social interest. Counselors can use tattoo narratives as a creative way to assess clients’ level of social interest, track progress, and build the therapeutic relationship.
Perspectives
I first participated in a client's tattoo narrative while I was interning as a counselor working with at-risk youth at a juvenile detention center. I was working with a client who shared about how a police officer treated him because of his tattoos. So I asked him to tell me what his tattoos meant to him. For 40 minutes he talked about what his tattoos meant to him. When the session neared its end he read my short summary statement I had written from everything he had told me, a statement that included his values and his perception of life. With a tear in his eyes, he asked if you could keep the paper. This was before I learned Adler's theory. Now, after learning Adlerian theory, it all makes sense why tattoos can be good to discuss in therapy. And while interviewing these 10 people, I was captivated by the richness of the stories about and around their tattoos.
Dr. Danny L. McCarty
University of South Alabama
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Social Interest and the Purposive Nature of Tattoos, The Journal of Individual Psychology, January 2021, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/jip.2021.0030.
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