Healing Through Photos: When Words Are Not Enough

Welcome! 

Hello! We are so glad that you are here. Are you trying to find an opportunity to explore your healing from the comfort of your own home? Have you ever felt that healing is hard to put into words? We have, too! Photography can be an incredibly helpful way to describe our thoughts in ways that words cannot capture. Don’t worry, you do not have to be an artist. Using photography, we are able to access parts of the brain that the verbal areas can’t reach. And just the act of doing it and reflecting on it can help us explore so many different parts of ourselves. 

Our Healing Through Photos activity is inspired by the evidence-based healing intervention Photo-experiencing and Reflective Listening (PEARL). PEARL is a scientifically tested process created by researchers and survivors like you to help people acknowledge all the amazing things they have already done for their healing and plan what might be next for them. While it is not fair that we have had to experience these things, the only thing that can help pull us out of the darkness is ourselves. But you do not have to do it alone. We are here to walk with you through that process. 

How Healing Through Photos Works

Healing Through Photos is an online, one time trauma-informed intervention for survivors of trauma, violence, and abuse to elicit their current emotional and mental states that involves gathering photographs to represent healing moments. 

To get the full experience, take a week to observe your environment and take photographs when you experience moments of healing (for example, moments you feel connected, whole, or well). You might consider capturing moments that feel difficult or challenging. Healing can involve experiencing many emotions, and that’s okay. If that feels too much of an ask right now, you can also scan through photographs you’ve already taken to see what moments stand out as important to your healing. 

After that, you will be invited to share the stories behind your photographs and how they relate to your healing journey. Looking across your photographs, you might start to notice patterns. What is standing out to you that is important to your healing? What feels missing? What do you want to do, try, or let go of? Lastly, be encouraged to identify one small goal for yourself for the next month to help you continue to move forward in healing beyond this activity. 

Why Try Healing Through Photos?

We encourage you to honor what is best for you, wherever you are in your healing journey. If you don't feel ready today, that's okay! Know that this activity will be here. Our team has been working to provide more accessible resources for survivors, and we hope that this Healing Through Photos can be a helpful tool. 

You do not need to disclose any trauma details to do this activity if you do not want to. And you may find that you are making more progress in your healing journey than you initially thought. We encourage you to celebrate those victories. 

Healing Through Photos is a flexible, self-guided process that involves documenting things that you already do. Maybe there are things that you didn’t even realize were helping you along the way, such as a pet or your weekly yoga class. Or maybe there are some things you have always wanted to try, but never felt like it was the right time, like that group therapy session that you heard about. PEARL can highlight the possibilities for you that you may not have realized were even options. We invite you to give it a try.

What Research Shows

PEARL was tested in multiple research studies, and recently underwent a randomized control trial to explore its potential impact on survivors. Our studies have shown that this activity can 1) improve survivors’ beliefs that it is possible to heal, highlighting personal strengths, 2) improve powerful trauma-related beliefs about yourself that can hold you back like shame and self blame, and 3) improve survivor healing by finding ways to reconnect with yourself, others, and the world. 

Survivors in our studies shared that they were able to meaningfully share their stories, change their perspectives, be vulnerable, and explore their relationship with themselves and others. Participants shared that this activity helped them reflect on their experiences of healing.  This helped them purposely engage in healing and daily life. PEARL has shown to be safe, supportive, and engaging for survivors of many different types of violence and harm. 

Healing Through Photos takes that intervention’s core components, and transforms them into a self-guided tool to explore your healing independently and at your own pace, no facilitator required. 

After Healing Through Photos, What Comes Next?

That is up to you! Survivors in our studies have shared that through this activity, they were able to slow down and appreciate the activities, loved ones, and opportunities in their lives. Some reflected on realizing that they needed more help, either through therapy or community resources. Others reflected on personal growth within their healing journeys, feelings of pride, acceptance, and hope for the future. 

Survivors have noted that reflecting on healing photographs has helped them think about what's next and to start preparing for it. You’ll leave with a healing action plan of your own with short term goals plus resources and strategies to help you get where you want to be. Not because there is a finish line to healing, but because you deserve that next step, whenever you are ready to take it. 

Again, we are so glad you are here. We really mean it. And if you are ready, try Healing Through Photos today and let us know what you think!

Healing is possible.

The Phoenix Gender-based Violence Research Team  

Serena Mlawsky

Kayleigh Izzo

Olivia Demmers

Quinn Cao

Rachel Nider

Laura Sinko

To read more about studies that have used PEARL see below!

Sinko, L.,  Saint Arnault, D. (2021).  Photo-experiencing and reflective listening: A trauma-informed photo-elicitation method to explore day-to-day health experiences. Public Health Nursing. 38, 661–670. https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.12904

Sinko, L., Hah, J., Manders, K., Saint Arnault, D., & Teitelman, A. (2024). A Feasibility and Acceptability Assessment of Photo-experiencing and Reflective Listening (PEARL): An Intervention to Promote Recovery Engagement After Gender-Based Harm. Violence Against Women, 30(8), 1883-1909. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012241231775

Sinko, L., Izzo, K., Tweedie, B., Jacobson, R., Morales, G., & credit, m. (2026). A multidimensional framework of healing among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) survivors of gender-based violence: Understanding components of recovery through identity-affirming strengths. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0002247

Mari, I., & Laura, S. (2024). The Promise of Photo-experiencing and Reflective Listening (PEARL) in Asian Qualitative Research. 질적연구, 25(2), 75-81. https://doi.org/10.22284/qr.2024.25.2.75 

Mughal, F. B., Sinko, L., & Saint Arnault, D. (2026). Enhancing the Recovery Process for Undergraduate Women Survivors of Sexual Violence: Identifying Facilitators to Healing. Violence Against Women, 32(1), 70-87. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012241307334

Sinko L.,  Munro-Kramer M.,  Conley T.,  Burns C.J.,  Saint Arnault D.M.(2020).  Healing is not linear: Using photography to describe the day-to-day healing journeys of undergraduate women survivors of sexual violence. Journal of Community Psychology. 48, 658–674. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22280