The Picture Framer – David Oyens. 1878.  Wikioo

“A reframe is not about telling yourself that
your fear is wrong. Reframes are about finding another way to look at the possibilities of your life.”

Rebecca K. Sampson

The psychological concept of reframing is an interesting one. What exactly is its meaning?

This is a technique, often used in cognitive therapy, which helps to alter the way in which people perceive situations. It is also useful generally in life, and we may come to realise that we use such techniques naturally, as we contemplate how to navigate the problems we encounter on a daily basis.

The aim of reframing is to work towards changing perspectives by ‘framing’ our experiences differently, in order that difficult situations or feelings can be re-interpreted, re-viewed and reconsidered in a different, more constructive light.

Emanation of Light. 2010. Author Limonc. Wikimedia Commons

This can be a way of empowering another person, giving them new meanings and new ways of thinking. It can result in feeling less stressed, helping us to deal with problems by finding new meaning in relation to thorny situations.

“Reframing is a term from cognitive psychotherapy which simply means seeing something in a new way, in a new context, with a new frame around it.”

 Elaine N. Aron

Reframing provides us with a way of looking at life issues and situations that provides us with different perspectives. It cannot change these issues, but ‘cognitive reframing,’ as it is often called, can give us new ways of thinking that can be helpful, constructive and refreshing.

• How can art can help to elucidate this concept?

Frans van Mieris the Elder: Woman before a Mirror. 1662-66. Wikimedia Commons

I will continue this post with some illustrative works from the world of art, in order to illuminate the concept further.

When we take a painting to a have a new frame fitted, we will notice how different frames actually affect the image. Some do not do the work justice, perhaps detracting from it, whilst others bring out the colours, forms and tones in a way that enhances the painting.

It all depends on the frame, and the artwork can be dramatically changed in relation to the way in which it is framed. This its akin to using the term psychologically…the central issues can look different when it is framed differently. 

 

“Our choices are affected by how information is framed. Depending on which qualities are emphasized, identical facts can be more or less appealing.”

Josh King Madrid

Can you see the differences in the painting when it is framed in different ways? Notice how various aspects of the work tend to stand out or recede, according to the frame!

This same principle can apply to the way we see life, and to how we present and experience what we see.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Anaïs Nin

• There is more than one way of looking at the world…

A good example of reframing may be seen when people experience what they may ‘frame’ as a failure, or a big mistake in their lives. Perhaps they strive for perfection, and every mistake feels enormous, the end of the world, thoroughly depressing.

Failed Again by Aleksey Korin (1891) Wikimedia Commons

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

Denis Waitley

If people are able to reframe such ‘failures,’ instead of seeing them as the end of the world, then their outlook may become more hopeful, and certainly more realistic…

“I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.”

Yohji Yamamoto

The above quotation neatly reframes the quest for perfection in a way that sees beauty in ‘scars, failure, disorder, distortion.’ These aspects may generally be regarded in a negative way, but Yamamoto reframes them and shows that they can have different meanings. Such imperfections inject some meaning, some life and energy, some real humanity into what we make and do.

“These failures brought me embarrassment, unhappiness, and pain. I wouldn’t wish them away.”

Stephen Grosz

Artists who reworked others artists’ paintings graphically show that there are many different ways to look at the same subject. Vermeer’s ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’ has frequently been re-worked, re-interpreted and re-viewed; artists like Banksy (Girl with a pierced eardrum) and Awol Erizku Girl with a Bamboo Earring” reveal very different ways of reinterpreting and reframing an original, so that it becomes imbued with powerful new meanings. (Follow link to view)

Many artists reframe reality by redefining in their work what is ‘acceptable’ artistically. In this way, they present a reformulation and recasting of art, life, and our ways of seeing.

The Street Enters the House (1911). Umberto Boccioni. Wikimedia Commons

The painting above blends inner and outer, it fragments boundaries, and breaks many traditional art ‘rules.’ It is far from ‘perfect’ in that sense! And yet see how it vibrates with energy, with interest and with life! Even the title is absurd, impossible, ridiculous, adding to the complexity, difference and uniqueness of this intriguing work.

Reframing, as in this work, can be a highly creative act. It can change mindsets, challenging fixities and rigidities…

“We can’t change the world, but we can change how we respond to the world.”

Stephanie M. Hutchins PhD

Reframe SF 5. Victor Ramos. Flickr.

“If a problem can’t be solved within the frame it was conceived, the solution lies in reframing the problem.”

Brian McGreevy

• Reframing and language

reframe. Shannon Kringen.2009. Flickr

“The language we use is extremely powerful. It is the frame through which we perceive and describe ourselves and our picture of the world.”

 Iben Dissing Sandahl, The Danish Way of Parenting

Examining the words we use is crucial in relation to reframing. For example, we may choose to substitute words that are empowering and encouraging for those that have the opposite, defeatist or negative connotations.

We can reframe problems as challenges, or reinterpret them as opportunities to grapple with issues that could prove fruitful and creative. We might reframe feeling stuck as a chance to review possible options and choices, or help someone soften the ‘should’ and oughts’ that dictate their ways of thinking, replacing them with words that remind them about personal choice and agency.

Arnold Lakhovsky. Conversation.c 1935. Wikimedia Commons

“Words are never ‘only words’; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do.”

Slavoj Žižek

The meanings that we assign to events in our lives are crucial to our wellbeing and mental health. We all need to be mindful about the stories we tell ourselves and how we interpret life and all that happens to us and around us. I am not suggesting that we turn a blind eye to our pain and suffering, to our difficulties and problems, relying on being defensively ‘positive.’ Far from it.

I am saying that, with some awareness and self-knowledge, perhaps we can come to realise that there are times when we frame aspects of ourselves and our lives in ways that are unhelpful- and unhealthy. Changing our narrative and telling ourselves better stories can make a huge difference to how we frame- and reframe- the world.

Christian Rohlfs – Conversation de Clowns. 1912. Wikimedia Commons

“I’ve been impressed by the extent to which one gets sentenced by one’s own sentences. One explores certain things in play and then in a strange way they become commitments which one has to live. I have gained a deep respect for the demonic power of the word. Words are not idle. They have consequences.”

Norman O. Brown

© Linda Berman