DIGITAL ART

Kayla Kozak

For my final project, I decided to incorporate the grounding act of drawing with the therapeutic practice of illustrating emotion.  I created an illustration that depicts the sensation of dissociation, a state of consciousness / “emotion” that is a symptom of mental illnesses such as panic disorder or PTSD. This sensation can manifest in many ways, but includes depersonalization, or “out of body” experiences in which the person dissociating experiences life in that moment from a third person perspective, or derealization, classified by the feeling that nothing is real, and the moment takes on the feeling of a dreamlike trance. Dissociation occurs in those who have experienced trauma, and is the brain’s equivalent to “playing dead” in stressful or triggering scenarios. It is involuntary and can be quite unsettling and disruptive for the person experiencing it. 

I had originally intended to illustrate three different emotions, however, I decided to focus on dissociation as it has become more common of an occurrence for me during this time of constant anxiety amidst a pandemic. Additionally, prior to self isolation orders, I had only ever experienced depersonalization, however lately, I have come to struggle with derealization as well, likely due to the isolation and the eerily repetitive nature of my days as of late. Thus, I wanted to more deeply explore this sensation in my artwork. The act of drawing, among other task based actions, can be used for grounding during dissociative episodes, and so it felt fitting that I explore this within my art therapy final project.