For the Personal Portfolio Module, First Year Sophie Stagg’s series ‘Safe Space’ looks at mental health and well-being.

  26th June 2019

These three images taken were in response to the Personal Portfolio module. I am interested in social documentary photography and for this series I wanted to explore the theme of mental health and well-being which has always been a topic of interest for me and felt very natural for me to want to talk more about.

Ever since struggling with my own mental health and well-being and not knowing of the help that was available to me I thought that documenting the resources for this would be insightful for people that know of others or themselves that need some help and where to find it. Throughout this project I was able to photograph many alternative resources, however this particular series I have called ‘Safe space’, takes a look at a private therapist called Janette, working in the Practice rooms in Cheltenham. Janette says “I’m a strong believer in not using medication to suppress issues.” She believes dealing with it head on is better, and always uses these three keywords, ‘think, cope and behave’ when helping her clients. She also explained that there are three main aspects that create a professional relationship between the client and therapist to create a safe space for people to open up, these are ‘empathy, genuineness and unconditional positive regard’.