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| Tattoos Meaning |
Tattoos blossom at the crossroads of bodies and art, the physical and the imaginary. Their colors, shapes, and symbols pulsate with memories, meanings, and emotions. Above all, body art captures and reveals unspoken aspects of human relationships, both past and gift.
“My body is a memorial,” says Amalia, a Peruvian-born woman in her thirty-something. “I have a tattoo for every honey WHO died. At the same time, I am still unsure what to create of this one.” She removes her sock and shows me “?!” tattooed on the rear of her gliding joint. While she is showing Pine Tree State her tattoo, I am thinking to myself, “she is revealing her Achilles heel to Pine Tree State.”
Tattoos often represent thoughts and feelings that we have a tendency to have not spoken regarding or acknowledged, even to ourselves. As Amalia puts it: “I had this image in my head, but I might not specific it in words.” Since both art and dreams trade in symbols and imagination, I approach tattoos the same way I work with patients’ dreams and fantasies. I ask folks to describe the thoughts, experiences, and emotions linked to their tattoos; I invite them to replicate on their past and gift relationships with others and with themselves.
For example, Amalia’s first tattoo of 3 tangled roses represents her closely knit family: her mother, her sister, and herself. Amalia’s mother was cremated, and her ashes scattered over the ocean; there is no graveside to go to. So this tattoo has become a celebration of her mother’s life, a way of claiming “thank you” to her, and a visceral, corporeal connection to her.
The tattoo that symbolizes Amalia’s mother, sister, and herself allows Amalia to incorporate (in Latin, corpus means “body”) her mother into herself. It captures and preserves the memory of her mother’s love, along with the emotional bond between them.
As it is commonly the case with body art, exploring Amalia’s thoughts and feelings surrounding the tattoo illuminates the emotional complexness of her relationship with her mother. Amalia describes her mother as a controlling lady WHO believed that solely “Goths and punks” tattoo their bodies. She would not have approved of Amalia’s tattoo, so Amalia unbroken it out of alternative people’s sight by golf shot it on her abdomen.
My empathy and curiosity permit congenital defect to faucet into, articulate, the tension between her positive and negative feelings toward her mother. Helping Amalia access her negative emotions toward her dead mother is not simple. It unleashes shame, guilt, and anxiety.
I ask her to describe her expertise of planning her tattoo and invite her to chew over its aesthetic charm and symbolic that means. I say to Amalia, “Imagine that you and that i are within the tattoo parlor along. Could you please describe to Pine Tree State the image that you have in mind? What emotions is it citing for you? what's it prefer to create it a part of yourself?”
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